A year ago this month, full-time employees of Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted to rejectrepresentation from the United Auto Workers (UAW) for the second time in five years. I can almost hear Richard Epstein saying, “Who can blame them?”
The UAW may still be America’s largest industrial union, but it’s no less a shell of its former self. At just under 400,000, the UAW’s active membership has fallen by half since the mid-2000s, and by two-thirds since its 1.5 million-member peak in 1979. For younger generations, whatever reputation the UAW earned for securing stable, middle-class jobs in the 20th century is now overshadowed by its contribution to the collapse of the U.S. automotive industry in the 21st century.
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