New York Times/Business August 15, 2001 Nissan Workers at Tennessee Plant Want Union Vote By Keith Bradsher
NASHVILLE, Aug. 14 — The United Automobile Workers asked federal officials here today to hold a vote on unionization among workers at the giant Nissan factory in nearby Smyrna, Tenn., setting up the nation's first such election in a dozen years at a foreign-owned auto plant.
If the union wins the vote, which is to be held within six to nine weeks, it would be a watershed in labor relations in the auto industry. The U.A.W. has never organized a foreign-owned assembly plant. The spread of these factories across the mostly nonunion South has eroded the union's power and put General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, which are unionized, at a competitive disadvantage.
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To discourage unionization, foreign automakers have been paying the same wages as the Detroit automakers — $45,000 to $100,000 a year, depending on overtime. But foreign automakers have much lower overall labor costs than the Detroit automakers because they provide less generous health insurance and other benefits and do not have the complicated work rules that make it hard for the Detroit automakers to shift workers among tasks.
The Canadian Auto Workers union tried unsuccessfully last month to organize the workers at a 2,400-employee Toyota factory in Ontario.
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The difficulty of organizing workers in Southern states was underscored for the U.A.W. last year when it was unable to gain enough support to call a vote at the Mercedes sport utility vehicle factory in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Mercedes is a division of DaimlerChrysler A.G. (news/quote), and Stephen P. Yokich, the president of the U.A.W., sits on its board in Germany.
Local business owners paid for an antiunion effort when Mercedes declined to do so. U.A.W. organizers were unable to persuade the mostly young Mercedes workers that a union was advantageous when Mercedes was already offering the same hourly pay as Chrysler, although not the same benefits.
The Nissan workers who showed up this morning at the labor board generally come from union backgrounds: Mr. Beard had been a unionized paper mill worker and Mr. Gentry had once been the president of a tiny local union of aluminum furniture workers in Fayetteville, Tenn. Nissan was among the first foreign automakers to open a factory in the United States, and more recent arrivals have been more assiduous about not hiring people who might have union sympathies. [end]