CRANBURY, NJ.—The United Auto Workers (UAW) is continuing its momentum of new organizing drives at non-union facilities. Workers at a Volkswagen distribution center in New Jersey have filed to join the UAW Local 2210, marking the first East Coast VW facility to take this step.
With supermajority support, these workers are part of a growing movement to unionize foreign automakers in the U.S., following the UAW’s landmark struggle in the 2023 Stand Up Strike against the Big 3.
The New Jersey workers, who distribute aftermarket parts nationwide, are demanding fair pay, affordable benefits, and a secure retirement. Sergio Sumano Jr., a warehouse worker with seven years at the facility, put it plainly: “We saw what was going on at the Big Three, and then Volkswagen workers in Tennessee won their union. Now, it’s our turn. If Volkswagen wants to operate in America, they need to treat us with the same dignity as their workers overseas.”
“There is a kind of fear in the building” without a union, said New Jersey auto worker Godwin Ameyaw. “When the bosses talk, you cannot challenge them. If we have a union, we’re going to have a common and stronger voice.”
“The health insurance is worthless,” said Floridalma Lemus who works at the New Jersey facility. “We are paying for it just for the fun of it,” she said.
Stuart Rowe has worked at the VW facility for 17 years and has never received a $1 raise since he’s been there. “It’s always just been change, you know? But the workload just grew and grew and grew—and the pay doesn’t grow with it.”
Rowe said he has been speaking with his fellow workers at the facility for his entire 17 year stint there about organizing a union. “Now, people are starting to listen,” he said. “Especially with what’s going on in Chattanooga.”
This New Jersey facility is the second Volkswagen site to organize with the UAW in the past year. Last April, more than 4,000 workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant voted overwhelmingly to join the union, despite fierce opposition from management and right-wing, big business politicians in the South.
“If we get in with Chattanooga, we’d be about 5,000 workers strong,” said Michael Frey, who has worked at the VW facility in New Jersey for 25 years.
That win was a turning point in the UAW’s campaign to organize the South, where union density has historically been low and big business exploitation rampant. The workers there are in the process of negotiating their first contract.
Part of broader effort
The push to unionize Volkswagen is part of a broader UAW campaign to organize non-union auto plants, particularly those owned by foreign companies. These companies, including Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, have long exploited low wages and weak labor laws in the South and non-union plants to maximize profits. But workers are fighting back.
“Every autoworker in America deserves a union,” said UAW President Shawn Fain. “Volkswagen workers made history in Chattanooga, and now New Jersey workers are stepping up. We won’t stop until every autoworker who wants a union has one.”
In Chattanooga, Volkswagen workers are now negotiating their first union contract, aiming to secure wages and benefits on par with workers at the Big 3 auto plants—Stellantis, GM, and Ford. Steve Cochran, a 14-year skilled trades worker at the Chattanooga plant, said, “Volkswagen racked up $24.4 billion in profits in 2023 by paying poverty wages and offering shameful benefits. We’re standing together to demand better.”
The UAW’s success in Chattanooga last year was a watershed moment. Workers voted nearly 3-to-1 to join the union, defying a coordinated campaign by six Southern Republican governors who claimed unionization would threaten the region’s “lifestyle”—the racist, so-called “Right to Work” lifestyle. The victory was a blow to systemic racism and corporate exploitation in the South, where anti-union policies have long kept wages low and workers divided.
“This is a movement for every blue-collar worker in America,” said Doug Snyder, a VW auto body plant worker in Chattanooga. “Our vote shows that workers everywhere want a better life on and off the job.”
The campaign is part of the UAW’s two-year, $40 million effort to organize 150,000 non-union autoworkers in the South.
The New Jersey filing is another step forward for the Auto Workers. Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), who represents the district where the facility is located, praised the workers: “Operating in New Jersey means operating with full respect for labor law and the rights of working people. I’m proud to stand with these inspiring workers.”
The UAW’s fight is about more than better wages and benefits. It’s about dignity, justice, and reclaiming power for the working class, the union said. “The balance of power is shifting. Autoworkers across the country are seeing what can be won when we unite,” UAW Region 9 Director Dan Vicente said.
The New Jersey workers are proof that the auto workers movement is steadily growing. Their courage, alongside the victories in Chattanooga and the fight in Alabama at Mercedes-Benz, despite losing that battle, shows that the UAW’s campaign to organize non-union plants is gaining ground.
“Your bosses are not going to give you anything more than what they have to. They’re going to cut, cut, cut. That’s all they do is cut,” said Peter Murphy, president of UAW Local 2210. “When you bargain and come together collectively, you can achieve so much.
“That’s why we call ourselves brothers and sisters—because we’re all in it together.”
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