Roy Exum
Today is the second day of voting at Chattanooga’s Volkswagen Assembly Plant and I can only imagine what is going to happen. The United Auto Workers are telling the Detroit News they have enough votes within the skilled maintenance staff of 164 people to carry the vote, while Volkswagen has already said if the unions win, VW will instantly appeal. In my way of thinking, VW workers would be better off carrying a rattlesnake in their pocket than a union card.
In another part of the world today, Volkswagen is borrowing $21 billion (with a ‘b’) so the company can remain liquid rather than crash-and-burn as a result of premeditated – and very illegal – fixes on the emissions systems of its diesel-powered cars.
We are told a half-million cars in the United States are affected and no telling how many in the rest of the world.
As a result November sales of Volkswagens are down 25 percent from a year ago and sales of the Passat – made in Chattanooga – plunged an unbelievable 60 percent compared to last year. Want worse news? According to November sales, buyers are eager for small SUVs and cross-overs – sedans like the Passat are staler than last week’s muffins.
And that brings us to the writing on the wall. Those who go to Sunday School will remember the story of King Belshazzar when, at a lavish banquet, a big hand appeared and as the king watched with his knees knocking, it wrote, “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSI.”
None of the King’s wise men or jesters, enchanters or diviners, knew what it meant so Belshazzar sent for Daniel, the star of the lion’s den, and was told by the Christian, “MENE: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end; TEKEL: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; and, PERES: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
That very night Belshazzar, the king of the Babylonians, was killed and things went from bad to worse. If Chattanooga’s VW workers are not exceedingly careful, the “big hand” may write something eerily similar on the wall of the plant’s conference center. Think about how this might play:
“THE REIGN ENDS” – Everybody knows the scandal will cost many billions (with a ‘b.’) VW will survive but perhaps not as we know it. The Wolfsburg plant with its 20,000 workers has just been placed on a two-week furlough this Christmas and the $21 billion loan will not begin to touch what the EPA penalties and what the rest of the global market will demand in retribution from VW. The German union is so nervous they demanded the largest stockholders come to assure the workers they would keep their jobs because the German union – despite its bluster -- has no teeth.
“WEIGHED ON THE SCALES” – It hardly takes a savant to realize the second assembly line in Chattanooga is now in jeopardy. I don’t care what anybody says – in a crisis you draw up the purse strings – despite the fact VW needs the new cross-over model desperately with sales in the tank.
Nobody can predict when the consumers’ confidence in the VW brand will return and the longer Passats languish in the parking lots, the shrewder the stare will be on Chattanooga. Really, do you think VW is going to let the Wolfsburg plant suffer and Chattanooga flourish? If you do, read up on German history from, oh, about 1935 to 1945.
With VW clearly opposing the UAW, what message does it send if the 164 skilled workers defy the wishes of the company? I can easily see Volkswagen suspending the Chattanooga plant in a numbers crunch. Better yet, if the UAW gets a toehold, that would make it plumb simple to stop the assembly line for several years. Remember, Chattanooga’s Passat just took the biggest drop for a model and make in modern-day history.
“THE KINGDOM DIVIDED” – Obviously, this is where the German manufacturer will start suspending out-of-country operations. The manufacturer has 61 plants around the world that were producing approximately 30,000 cars every day when “Dieselgate” exploded.
With global sales off by 25 percent this month (that’s roughly 7,500 cars a day) and a worse prognosis through the winter, what would you do? What else can you do? Standard and Poors’ just lowered the credit rating for the second time since mid-September. Candidly, VW has little choice but to idle the lines.
The biggest problem of all is that VW hasn’t responded immediately with promising news, that the company hasn’t addressed the disgruntled car owners, and has left the dealers reeling. A huge law case began in New Orleans Thursday – thus far there are 480 consumer fraud lawsuits -- and to fix and/or replace all cars affected is believed to project between $1.5 billion and $8.9 billion.
The amount of money Volkswagen must pay to right its wrongs will be astronomical. The very worst thing VW employees in Chattanooga could do would be to draw company scorn right now. Wolfgang Porsche, on behalf of the majority owners, knows this will not pass “like a regular thunderstorm” and, as the days get longer, the hunch here is Chattanooga workers should be a lot more worried than the Wolfsburg crowd.
You might as well get ready – the writing is on the wall. Volkswagen is going to get worse before it gets better. And know this: of ever car VW makes, Passat is at the very bottom of the food chain. Yet we have “stupids” in our midst who can’t think of a better time to vote in the United Automobile Workers. Like the author Jodi Picoult once wondered out loud, “Is Fate getting what you deserve, or deserving what you get?”
royexum@aol.com