Bob King, the head of the UAW, thinks they are guilty of false consciousness. If only they weren’t so viciously misled by outside agitators, such as Tennessee senator Bob Corker, the former mayor of Chattanooga who helped to woo VW to the city in the first place. He rightly said that the UAW is in a “death spiral” and, more controversially, that the automaker would make a rapid decision to invest further in the plant if the UAW lost the vote.

King alleges that Corker’s comments violated “the spirit” of labor law, which is nonsense. The senator doesn’t work for VW, and he has the First Amendment right to say whatever he wants. If Corker is guilty of dirty pool, what about President Barack Obama, who told a group of Democratic lawmakers that no one opposed the UAW organizing the Chattanooga plant except people “more concerned about German shareholders than American workers”? That’s not inflammatory?

The only law that will satisfy King is one that forbids anyone from saying a discouraging word about his union, which was found alone in a room in 2009 with two nearly dead car companies. After the UAW did so much to chase automaking out of Detroit with unsustainable labor costs and ridiculous work rules, it is no wonder that workforces haven’t welcomed it into the South, where right-to-work states have become alluring destinations for foreign car companies.