>Organised labour in the US suffered a major setback on >Wednesday when more
than 4,500 workers at a Nissan >assembly plant in Tennessee voted
resoundingly against >being represented by the United Auto Workers union.
A few things to note that I DID NOT note in the release's whole text:
1. That plant rates high in efficiency and productivity for the US, but was still below Nissan factories that have been or are being closed here in Japan.
2. Nissan overall had and still has high efficiency and productivity company-wide, but competition from Toyota and Honda have pounded it to virtual bankruptcy in Japan.
3. French automaker Renault CONTROLS Nissan. Perhaps the people in the US who work at the Smyrna plant (greenbelt, non-union area anyway) felt that they had better concentrate on using Nissan representation to deal with Renault's management. The UAW would just complicate things. One wonders if people from Smyrna are in communication with any Nissan workers in Japan?Besides, the UAW has been quite protectionist about imported cars and about foreign manufacturing in the US (namely the Japanese).
This is an insignificant setback. OTOH, if 'organized labor' in the US wants a major accomplishment it will work for universal health coverage, higher minimum wages, and union representation for people in the service industries, like retail and fastfood, including part-timers. In other words, what the UAW wants does not equal what real organized labor for the US ought to have.
And as a footnote: Ford CONTROLS Mazda.
Charles Jannuzi