NLRB to review order blocking Nissan union vote

NASHVILLE, TENN. — A federal labor board is reviewing a decision by one of its regional officials to deny a union from trying to organize fewer than 100 of the thousands of employees at Nissan’s auto assembly plant in Tennessee.

A 3-2 decision Tuesday by the National Labor Relations Board — now with a Democratic majority under President Joe Biden — ordered a review of the June ruling that prevented a vote limited to 87 tool and die technicians at Nissan’s Smyrna plant, about 25 miles outside Nashville.

The NLRB’s new order says the decision by an acting regional director “raises substantial issues warranting review.”

The regional official ruled against the smaller bloc vote after finding the few dozen workers share an “overwhelming community of interest” with the rest of the facility’s production and maintenance workers, and that the only appropriate unionized group through the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers campaign would be one representing about 4,300 plantwide production and maintenance workers. The union did not want the larger vote and didn’t pursue it.

Three Democratic NLRB members picked by President Joe Biden voted to review that ruling. Two Republican members selected by former President Donald Trump voted against it.

The decision restores some hope for unions in what had been the latest failed foray in the uphill fight to gain traction at foreign-owned auto assembly plants in the traditionally antiunion South.

The union has argued that the 87 employees sought for a bargaining unit have extremely specialized skills for a job that others at the plant cannot do and should be eligible for standalone representation.