The GOP Gets All Up in Volkswagen's Business [View all]

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By Pat Garofalo

Republicans like to say that they want to get government off the back of business. Evidently that maxim fails to apply when a business isn’t anti-union enough.

Workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., are voting this week on whether or not to join the United Auto Workers. Far from attempting to prevent its workers from unionizing, Volkswagen is offering its support, saying "Volkswagen America is committed to defending our employees' legal right to make a free choice." And that seems to have driven Republicans into a fit of madness.

For starters, state lawmakers have said that the hefty package of tax incentives they dumped into Volkswagen’s lap to entice the company to build in Tennessee could be at risk if the plant unionizes. "It has been widely reported that Volkswagen has promoted a campaign that has been unfair, unbalanced and, quite frankly, un-American in the traditions of American labor campaigns," said Republican state Sen. Bo Watson. "Should the workers choose to be represented by the United Auto Workers, then I believe additional incentives for expansion will have a very tough time passing the Tennessee Senate."

Usually I’d consider it a good thing that a state was rethinking the buckets of corporate tax incentives it doles out, since they do little to promote economic growth or job creation. But it’s anti-union animus, not economics, driving this discussion.

And it’s not just state lawmakers voicing their displeasure with Volkswagen: Conservative groups have poured into Tennessee, buying up billboards saying, among other things, that Chattanooga will turn into bankrupt Detroit if the UAW is successful.

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http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/pat-garofalo/2014/02/13/volkswagen-drives-anti-union-republicans-crazy-in-tennessee