Solidarity in tapestry for Volkswagen workers
Commentary by Tabitha Arnold
Last weekend, I brought my new tapestry to the big community rally for Volkswagen workers ahead of their much-anticipated union vote.
Just minutes before I left for IBEW Local 175, I sewed the final whip stitch onto the border of the piece, bringing the total time spent to 224 hours and 15 minutes. I poured my heart and soul into this textile, giving up many evenings and weekends over the last 2 months, and even passing up a trip to see the full eclipse with friends.
Normally, when I finish a tapestry, the “public reveal” happens when I post a photo on the internet. This step has always felt unsatisfying to me. After all the time and labor I spent, it’s very anti-climactic to see the finished object compressed into a tiny image for people to idly scroll past on social media.
This time, the reveal would be different. The very first people to see my tapestry would be some 200 Volkswagen workers, family members, and community supporters who packed out the union hall that Sunday afternoon. On the drive to the IBEW hall, I felt absolutely terrified: what if the workers didn’t understand the meaning of the piece? What if I was being too opportunistic, using their event as a backdrop for my tapestry?
My worst fear of all—what if they didn’t like it?
Before I began embroidering the tapestry, I wanted to get the best possible understanding of auto work at Volkswagen. I watched everything on the company’s youtube channel, along with a few lengthy videos that detailed the assembly process of a single vehicle from start to end. I made note of the tools workers used, their different roles within the workplace, and the movements they made at the various stations. I read about the former UAW campaigns at the plant, how and why these endeavors failed, and what the union is doing differently this time around.
While I researched, I was extremely lucky to get to know Zachary Costello, a lead worker at the plant who also volunteers on the UAW’s organizing committee. Zach told me all about his experience as an auto worker, including how it felt to work during and after the UAW’s 2019 campaign that failed by a few dozen votes. He talked about the good, the bad, and the frustrating reasons why he stepped up to become an organizer this time around. Sometimes, he voiced complaints about the social dynamics in the plant, describing how political differences and toxic attitudes about work showed up to create division between coworkers.
But, Zach has an organizer’s heart: he always spoke with deep empathy about the reasons people opposed a union; understanding how his coworkers were affected by economic precarity, exhausting work schedules, and anti-labor propaganda. He never gave up on his colleagues, and treated them with kindness and patience, no matter how much they disagreed. Zach is just one of many worker-organizers who have tirelessly built this union campaign from the ground up, and it’s powerful to witness their work, and how much they love and believe in other workers.
Volkswagen is a massive plant with over 4,300 employees, and the assembly line is segmented in a way that many staff don’t get to know their coworkers in other units. As a car moves through the line, many hands touch it; belonging to people who have never met, but whose labor comes together to build something bigger than the sum of its parts. There is something profound about this connection between you and somebody you don’t know.
I thought about the will to organize in a similar way; envisioning a kind of fire that grows as it catches on inside the plant. The union spirit threads through workers as they talk and build relationships. As solidarity grows, it moves through the line, igniting a spark of bravery within each person who decides to stand up with their coworkers for the chance at building a better life.
It takes bravery to sign a union card. For many workers, standing up with the UAW feels like a significant risk: they may face social backlash, or even retaliation from the company, if the vote fails and they’re left without union protection. They also have to face fears of the plant shutting down—a baseless rumor propagated by corporate politicians like Governor Bill Lee and County Mayor Weston Wamp.
But the antidote to fear is solidarity. As the fire grows, and more workers stand up with the union, it becomes a raging blaze that won’t stop at Volkswagen. If the UAW vote passes in Chattanooga, the fire moves on to Vance, Alabama, where Mercedes-Benz factory workers have also decided to unionize. If every worker feels that fire and decides to stand up, the UAW organizes the South.
While I worked on the tapestry, I thought about the working-class propaganda created by Jeremy Flood, videographer for the UAW, along with the union’s incredible communications team. Many videos feature workers repeating, “these hands,” as they lift up their own, displaying the hands that created all the wealth of their employers.
“These hands” is a powerful symbol, and it’s also a reference to a Phillip Agnew speech from the 2020 Bernie Sanders campaign. Addressing a massive crowd of working-class people, Agnew asked the audience to join hands in solidarity, and finally, he called them to raise their hands in the air. As he led the crowd in a chant, thousands of voices shouted:
“With these hands we will rebuild our communities.
With these hands we will free our people from prison.
With these hands we will fight for a nation that makes our grandparents and our grandchildren proud.
With these hands we will build power and transformation.
With these hands we will do miracles.”
Though the 2020 Sanders campaign did not succeed, the organizing spirit that Phillip Agnew called up in that moment did not fade away. It burns on within the UAW’s propaganda videos, which take his famous quote even further. In a video announcing their intent to join the UAW, workers at a Missouri Toyota plant repeat, “our hands, our backs, our knees, our work.”
This quote speaks to the physical toll of labor on the body. As many auto workers report, chronic injuries are rampant in the industry, and it’s a big reason why Southern plants need the kind of excellent, affordable healthcare that workers at the Big Three were able to negotiate in their historic 2023 contract.
Volkswagen workers put their body on the line when they clock in every day. I see this as a form of martyrdom; something I often refer to in my artwork, because I’m fascinated by the convictions—or the necessities—that drive people to take on serious risks to their bodies and lives. People will martyr their bodies for work, if they’re desperate enough for the pay. Like pregnancy, a form of physical labor that comes with its own serious risks, people decide every day that it’s worth putting their bodies on the line for.
Here in Southeast Tennessee, we’re famous for religious ceremonies that involve snake handling. I’m interested in the spiritual fervor that leads people to take on the risk of placing venomous snakes on their body. That imagery ended up appearing in my tapestry; where snake handlers emerge from the fire, along with images of pregnancy, motherhood, and injured workers.
As my 224th hour of work approached, I realized my nearly-finished tapestry had become a kind of meditation on the union. I’ve always thought of my slow approach to art-making as a deliberate reaction to mainstream news outlets, which are always eager to move on to the next big story, even if that means leaving working people behind in their unresolved suffering.
I admire Maximillian Alvarez, an incredible socialist journalist, for his refusal to turn away from victims of capitalism. A year and some change after the disastrous Norfolk-Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, Alvarez still centers the survivors of the chemical spill, working to amplify their pleas for relief from the federal government. As we approach the two-year anniversary of the Uvalde mass shooting, Alvarez continues to interview bereaved parents in their struggle for justice in their childrens’ names.
After the Francis Scott Key bridge disaster, I added an image to my tapestry of workers serving as bridge supports. Alvarez, who lives in Baltimore, will no doubt use his journalism to help me keep my eye on the immigrant families of the five workers who died tragically in the collapse.
I wonder if this practice of keeping your gaze on working people is the highest form of love and solidarity. After the novelty and shock wears off, as tomorrow’s stories roll in and clamor for our attention, you can say, “I won’t forget you. I won’t leave you behind. I see you.”
On the day of the rally, I scrambled to put together a short speech about my tapestry. With the help of a generous studio neighbor and a friend with sewing machine skills, I had mounted the tapestry on industrial poles so I could parade it like a trade union banner. I realized it felt more like a religious object, something you’d find in a religious procession in a Catholic church. As I assembled the poles on the floor of the union hall, I noticed that it required two people to hold it up; another symbolic nod to union solidarity. Still, I wasn’t sure if people would “get it.”
I nervously set up the textile next to the stage and tried to disappear into the crowd. The rally began, and union members and faith leaders took turns standing in front of it, offering words of support and encouragement to Volkswagen workers.
Finally, it was my turn. I stood up between the tapestry and the workers and offered a short explanation of why I make labor-focused artwork. I talked about the history of trade union banners in union halls, and why I thought the new UAW local deserved its own visual monument to the workers who built the union. The room was quiet; probably because I’m not a great public speaker, and I haven’t figured out how to create space for applause.
There’s very little in this world that makes me feel optimistic, except for the fighting labor movement. So at the end of my short speech, I realized that was something I really needed to share. I told the Volkswagen workers, “thank you for giving me hope for the future.”
After the speech, I tried to walk quietly back to my seat, but roughly a dozen hands reached out to grab me on the way there. They belonged to workers, union members, and other artists in the labor movement. As the rally came to an end, I kept getting pulled aside and held and thanked.
I saw workers looking for themselves in the piece, and I could see the moment they recognized their own uniforms, tools, and bodies reflected back to them. The next hour was a blur of selfies, cautious hands touching the embroidery, and flabbergasted comments. Workers asked, “how long did this take?”
When I answered, I felt a shared understanding of what it means to put time into something. Few people know overtime as intimately as auto workers, who routinely clock 12-hour days and upwards of 60-hour weeks. There was a tangible solidarity in my tapestry.
The next question most folks asked: “is this for us?”
Over and over, I told them yes.
I’ve displayed my artwork in a number of art venues; including museums, galleries, and universities. Just like posting my tapestries on the internet, these art shows have always left something to be desired. I’m so grateful for everyone who has come to see my textiles in person, but I think about all the working people who might not have time or money to participate in that aspect of the art world. The art exhibit audience is self-selecting; including people who have the confidence to enter a venue, and who trust they will find work that makes sense to them and speaks to their experience.
When I brought my tapestry to the union hall, I realized this was the piece I was missing. I make artwork for working-class people in the labor movement, and I got to show my new tapestry to these eyes before anyone else in the world.
I still haven’t taken a decent photo of the tapestry for online publication, and honestly, I don’t have much motivation to do that. The internet has been amazing for my career, but no amount of online validation could compete with the experience I had at the union hall: witnessing workers realize that they’re seen, and that their labor and organizing struggle are worth committing to a visual memorial.
On April 17, Volkswagen workers will vote to join the UAW. I could not be prouder of their dedicated struggle over the last decade, and feel lucky to play a small part in supporting them with community solidarity. Stand up!
[Editors’ note: In April, VW Chattanooga workers voted overwhelmingly to join UAW.]
Tabitha Arnold is a Southern socialist making textile art about unions. Her Substack site is called Labor Intensive Art.
Source: tabithaarnold.substack.com, April 16, 2024