UAW tactics called into question at VW's TN plant

The United Auto Workers is in hot water with some of the very workers it is trying to unionize at Volkswagen's Chattanooga assembly plant. According to The Tennessean, eight Volkswagen factory workers have filed complaints against the UAW with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming the union "misled or coerced" them into formally asking for union representation.

The UAW has instituted a major push at the Chattanooga plant to represent the 2,500 hourly laborers that build the VW Passat by using what's called a card-check process. The tactic is opposed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense foundation, the group representing the workers. The card-check process demands that a company recognize a union that obtains the signatures of more than half its workforce, according to The Tennessean. This tactic is in contrast to the more traditional route, which sees employees vote on union representation.

The workers filing the complaint claim that the UAW told them the cards merely called for a secret ballot, rather than an outright demand for union representation. Workers also allege that the UAW has made it overly difficult to reclaim their signed cards, some of which were signed so long ago that they have been rendered invalid. Although the cards can force a company's hand, federal law still allows the company to ask for a secret ballot before yielding to unionized workers.

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GM files patent for 7-speed DCT, is it headed for Corvette?

Although a report last year indicated that the seventh-gen Chevrolet Corvette could be getting an eight-speed automatic transmission, it looks like General Motors might have some other plans in mind. General Motors recently filed a patent with the US Patent and Trademark Office for a new seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, and CorvetteForum.com makes the obvious guess that this performance-enhancing gearbox could find its way a future version of Chevy's performance coupe.

The drawing above comes directly from the patent filing, and while the gearbox will almost certainly be used in more than just one model, it would be a welcomed replacement for the six-speed automatic currently found in the 2014 Corvette. The idea of a DCT in the already-impressive C7 Stingray definitely makes the rivalry between the Corvette and the Porsche 911 a little more intriguing.

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Consumer Reports joins lawsuit against DOT over backup cameras

Consumer Reports' Consumers Union has joined in a lawsuit filed by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Kids and Cars, Greg Gulbransen, M.D., and Susan Auriemma against the US Department of Transportation, over the department's failure to implement a rule mandating backup cameras in new cars and trucks.

As part of 2008's Cameraon Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act, the DOT was ordered, by law, to come up with rear-visibility standards for new vehicles. In 2010, the DOT proposed mandating backup cameras, but since that proposal, the effort has stalled, with the original 2011 deadline pushed back multiple times. The current due date for a ruling is now 2015. Greg Gulbransen, one of the plaintiffs, who ran over and killed his two-year-old son, Cameron, told Consumer Reports, "It's mindboggling that two more children like Cameron are killed every week, yet the administration is content to postpone doing anything about it. This isn't some technical abstraction, it's about actual people being injured and killed."

The suit seeks to force the DOT to issue an immediate ruling that can be implemented before the 2015 deadline, which according to Consumers Union, would prevent up to 95 to 112 deaths per year.

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DoJ fines Japanese parts firms $740M in massive automotive price-fixing scandal

Nine Japanese suppliers have pleaded guilty in US court over charges of price fixing in the automotive parts industry, resulting in the Department of Justice doling out a total of $740 million of fines, according to a report from Bloomberg. The scandal, which has resulted in General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Chrysler spending up to $5 billion on inflated parts and driving up prices on 25 million vehicles has sent the DoJ hustling into investigations. "The conduct this investigation uncovered involved more than a dozen separate conspiracies aimed at the U.S. economy," Attorney General Eric Holder (pictured above) said during yesterday's press conference.

As the investigation stands, the DoJ has issued $1.6 billion in fines against 20 companies and 21 individual executives, with 17 of the execs headed to prison. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Scott Hammond said, "The breadth of the conspiracies brought to light today are as egregious as they are pervasive. They involve more than a dozen separate conspiracies operating independently but all sharing in common that they targeted US automotive manufacturers."

Big-name suppliers indicted in the investigation include Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Hitachi Automotive and Mitsuba Corporation. A list of fines and other corporations named in the investigation is available at Bloomberg.

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Google Earth helps sheriff's department find stolen car [w/video]

A stolen-vehicle case opened back in March was recently solved with the help of a property owner using Google Earth, a virtual globe and mapping service similar to Google Maps, ABC News reports. The man, who remains anonymous, found the stolen GMC Yukon while he was surveying his property in George County, Mississippi, using the map service and, judging by the top-down satellite image, thought he found a "shooting house" on his hunting grounds.

When he drove out to the suspicious structure, he realized it actually was a sport utility vehicle wedged in thick brush about 70 yards from the nearest road, so he called the police.

Law enforcement officers had arrested a female suspect in the case earlier based on eyewitness accounts, but didn't prosecute her because the stolen SUV hadn't been found. Ben Brown, a lieutenant detective with the George County Sheriff's Department, says that he ran the plates and confirmed the SUV was the stolen vehicle the department had been looking for.

"Now that we have the truck, we can pursue the prosecution," Brown says.

Watch the video below for the full story (followed by an interesting piece on the iPhone's fingerprint recognition system), and remember: Google is watching you...

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Treasury sells more GM stock, stake now at 7.3%

The US Treasury's sale of General Motors stock continues, with the unloading of more than 110 million shares between May 9 and September 13 netting the government agency $3.82 billion and reducing its stake in GM to 7.3 percent, Reuters reports. The Treasury also confirmed that it now holds 101-million shares, which are on track to be sold by March 2014.

Those remaining shares are currently worth $3.7 billion, with GM stock closing at $36.71 per share as of yesterday. That means Treasury is on track to lose $10 billion from the bailout, which is far less than earlier estimates of more than $20 billion. But to recoup the full amount, it was reported in July that GM stock would need to be worth over $95 per share – it's presently trading around $37.50. Supporters of the bailout note that the bailout was meant to save jobs and stabilize the wider economy, a consequence of which is that Washington – and taxpayers – probably won't break even.

The US government originally took a 60.8 percent stake in GM valued at $49.5 billion as part of the 2009 bailout, and has since that time, it has been reducing its stake in the company with the goal of selling all of its GM stock and recouping as much of the bailout money as possible. The selloff started when the automaker went public in 2010.

In December, the Treasury announced it would sell its remaining GM stock over the next 12 to 15 months. At the time, it held roughly 500-million shares, 200m of which were bought back by General Motors before 2013 at a negotiated price of $27.50 per share. In February, it reduced its stake in GM to 19 percent with the sale of 17.2-million shares. In July, the Treasury announced that it had sold more shares, totaling $876.9 million, which reduced the government's stake in GM by 23-26-million shares to around 135-137-million shares. Between then and September 13, the Treasury sold another 34-36 million shares to land at the current number of 101 million, or a stake of 7.3 percent.

Treasury Assistant Secretary Timothy Massad said in a statement: "We remain on track to complete our exit from GM by early next year at a cost far less than originally projected," Reuters reports.

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