Update below.

The auto workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, TN are voting Wednesday through Friday this week to determine whether they’ll affiliate with the United Auto Workers. If they do, they’ll be the first autoworkers at a foreign carmaker’s plant in the American South to organize.

Volkswagen is not fighting the unionization effort at all.

Volkswagen said the UAW, if voted in, would work to set up a works council, a common industry practice in Germany in which managers work with representatives of white-collar and blue-collar workers to foster collaboration and increase productivity.

“Volkswagen Group of America and the UAW have agreed to this common path for the election,” said Frank Fischer, chairman and chief executive of Volkswagen Chattanooga.

So this should be easy, right?

Hold your horses, there, labor person. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee is fighting tooth-and-nail to keep this from happening. He loathes unions. You may recall that he fought hard against the auto industry bailout unless it “forced the UAW to lower its members’ wages to the level of employees at Honda and the other foreign-owned car manufacturers operating in the United States.” Wednesday he claimed

he has been “assured” that if workers at the Volkswagen AG plant in his hometown of Chattanooga reject United Auto Worker representation, the company will reward the plant with a new product to build.

Corker’s bombshell, which runs counter to public statements by Volkswagen, was dropped on the first of a three-day secret ballot election of blue-collar workers at the Chattanooga plant whether to allow the UAW to represent them.

So who’s not telling the truth — Corker or VW management? I’d put money on Corker being the liar. He’s shown himself to be unscrupulous and vicious toward union workers in the past; why would he change his spots now? He and his colleagues in the state legislature even threatened the company with the loss of future tax breaks if it is unionized:

Many Tennessee lawmakers, including Gov. Bill Haslam and Sen. Bob Corker, have voiced concern about the UAW’s drive, warning that unionization of the plant would make it less competitive and hurt Chattanooga’s and Tennessee’s business climate.

State Republican leaders Monday accused Volkswagen of supporting the UAW and threatened to withhold any tax incentives for future expansion if workers voted to join the UAW.

Nasty stuff, huh?

Steve Benen has more.

Update: Lydia DePillis of the Washington Post interviewed Corker and put up an annotated transcript (annotated because he was wrong in several of the claims he made during the interview) of the conversation. Take special heed of the note at the bottom, where he whines that the Spring Hill, TN plant has a terrible attitude. Why might it have a bad attitude (in fact, he’s been booed when he’s shown up there)? Well, because of his behavior during the bailout negotiations discussed above.