United Auto Workers tests its hold in the South as a Tennessee Volkswagen finishes voting on membership

the UAW is operating under new leadership, directly elected by its members for the first time and basking in a successful confrontation with Detroit’s major automakers.

The United Auto Workers’ ambitious drive to expand its reach to nonunion factories across the South and elsewhere faces a key test Friday night, when workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, will finish voting on whether to join the union.