Since workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., voted against joining the UAW this February, there has been no shortage of analysis of what went wrong. On cue, anti-union forces and many within the mainstream media took it as a sign of the increasing irrelevance of unions to today’s workers.

But the defeat also triggered a round of thoughtful soul-searching among labor’s backers about why the election was lost. Many focused on the role of the Right in turning the vote using threats and intimidation. But that’s only part of the story. Even if the UAW had won in Tennessee, another conversation is needed — a conversation about the kind of organization the UAW has become. For those of us that believe that union revitalization is an urgent necessity, addressing the deficiencies in our own unions is just as important as criticizing employers and politicians who prevent workers from unionizing.

In fact, there is more than a kernel of truth to the criticisms from the Chattanooga opposition that unionization was unlikely to produce major gains for the workforce given the UAW’s cozy relationship with the company, disavowal of industrial militancy and tight control over contract negotiations. This is evident in the union’s failure to address the needs of young UAW members in two different industries: auto workers working under two-tier contracts and graduate student teaching assistants, like the members of my local at the University of California.