The United Auto Workers on Wednesday subpoenaed Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R), along with 18 other officials, for the union’s challenge of the Chattanooga, Tenn. Volkswagen plant workers’ vote to reject unionization, the Associated Press reported.
The subpoenas ask for written correspondence pertaining to the union in the leading up to the vote, according to the AP.
UAW has accused Corker, Haslam, and other Tennessee politicians of interfering in the vote and coercing the auto plant workers into voting against unionizing. In its challenge to the National Labor Relations Board, UAW wrote that the politicians “conducted what appears to have been a coordinated and widely publicized coercive campaign.”
State lawmakers threatened to withhold tax breaks for the plant if workers’ joined the union, but Corker has insisted that UAW tried to intimidate workers before the vote.
“One of the things that hasn’t been reported is that the UAW had been spreading rumors that the only a new SUV line was going to come to the plant and double its size, the only way that was going to happen was if the plant was organized by the UAW,” Corker said during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in February.
The union’s hearing with the NLRB is scheduled for April 21.
A spokesman for Corker’s office told the AP that they have referred the subpoenas to their legal counsel.
“After a stinging defeat, rather than respect the workers’ decision the UAW is trying to create a sideshow,” Corker spokesman Todd Womack said. “We hope other people who might be inclined to consider the UAW will take this development as a cautionary tale.”
