The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nissan workers reject union bid; UAW blames ‘scare tactics’
The company said its employees had spoken and it urged the UAW to ‘respect and abide by their decision and cease their efforts to divide our Nissan family.’
CANTON, MISS. — In a test of labor’s ability to expand its reach in the South, workers at a Nissan plant in Mississippi overwhelmingly rejected a bid to unionize, an election that the union quickly criticized.
Out of roughly 3,500 employees at the Cantonbased plant who voted Thursday and Friday, more than 60 percent opposed the union. It was an emphatic coda to a yearslong organizing effort underwritten by the United Automobile Workers, which has been repeatedly frustrated in its efforts to organize auto plants in the region.
The union accused the company of waging an unusually aggressive fight against the organizing effort.
“Perhaps recognizing they couldn’t keep their workers from joining our union based on the facts, Nissan and its anti-worker allies ran a vicious campaign against its own workforce that was comprised of intense scare tactics, misinformation and intimidation,” Dennis Williams, the UAW president, said in a statement after the vote.
The company said its employees had spoken and it urged the UAW to “respect and abide by their decision and cease their efforts to divide our Nissan family.”
The election campaign at the plant, where a large majority of workers are African-American, frequently took on racial overtones. Some employees alleged that white supervisors dispensed special treatment to white subordinates, a charge the company emphatically denied.
For their part, anti-union workers highlighted the UAW’s contributions to local civil rights and religious groups, accusing the union of seeking to buy support in the African-American community.
In the end, though, basic economics combined with a fear of change may have carried the day. Veteran workers at the plant make about $26 per hour, typically only a few dollars less than veteran workers represented by the union at the major U.S. automakers, and well above the median wage in Mississippi.
Before coming to Nissan more than 14 years ago, “I didn’t have a 401(k), I had one week of vacation,” said Marvin Cooke, a Nissan paint technician who voted against the union. “Now, I have four weeks’ vacation. I’m off on every holiday. Nissan has provided a great living for me.”
While a significant number of workers at the plant, which has a total workforce of nearly 6,500, are contract workers who earn lower wages than regular employees, they were not eligible to vote in the union election.
Publicly, Nissan emphasized how the plant was a lifeline for workers in the area, including one commercial in which a Mississippi pastor described how people were “fluctuating back and forth looking for jobs” before the plant arrived. The message resonated with many workers, although some found it condescending.
In meetings between management and workers, and in a video featuring the plant’s top official, Nissan was more menacing, suggesting that a union would put workers’ jobs at risk.
At one point leading up to the vote, managers delivered a slide presentation warning that in the event of a strike, most employees who walked out would not be guaranteed jobs afterward.