NLRB OKs vote for small union at Nissan auto plant

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Fewer than 100 employees out of the thousands who work at Nissan’s auto assembly plant in Tennessee can hold a vote on whether to form a small union, the federal labor board has decided.

The ruling Thursday by the National Labor Relations Board overturns a June 2021 decision by one of its regional officials that has long blocked the vote. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers sought to limit the push to about 86 tool and die technicians at Nissan’s Smyrna plant, about 25 miles outside Nashville.

The union said it is discussing the ruling with the employees at the Nissan facility “to determine the best path forward.” The board’s three Democrats, who now hold a majority under President Joe Biden, signed off on the decision. The last remaining GOP member did not join the majority’s ruling. The ruling offers a dash of hope for unions in their struggle to get a foothold in foreignowned auto assembly plants in the traditionally anti-union South.

Previously, 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. She found that the only appropriate unionized group 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.

The board, under a newly installed Democratic majority, announced in December 2021 that it would review that decision. The board reasoned last week that the group of workers qualifies for the carved-out vote as a “craft unit,” saying those workers are “highly trained, highly paid employees working in a trade that the Board has frequently recognized as a craft.”

Nissan had contended that the employees are not sufficiently distinct from other plant workers to be eligible for their own small unionized subgroup. The company has about 7,000 employees at the Smyrna facility.

Nissan does work with organized labor in the rest of the world, but votes to unionize broadly at the two U.S. plants have not been close.