UAW SEEKS TO UNIONIZE NISSAN WORKERS IN MISSISSIPPI

I'm up late tonight working on a union matter. Just looked at the news now and saw this hopeful piece.  The United Auto Workers will have a union election at a Nissan plant in of all places Canton Mississippi. This is some of the Detroit News coverage on the organizing election that will take place on August 3-4. Maybe unions aren't dead yet.




From the article:

Auto industry observers say the UAW has a tough fight ahead in a region typically hostile to labor groups. But the union says the push for a vote to join the UAW has come mostly from workers at Nissan’s 14-year-old plant in Canton, Mississippi. Workers there have cited a pattern of labor abuses by the Japanese automaker against the plant’s predominantly African-American workforce, including threatening to close the facility if they decide to unionize.

“Nissan spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year marketing itself as a socially responsible car maker, even going so far as to brag about its appeal to African-American car buyers,” said Rahmeel Nash, a Nissan technician who has worked at the Canton plant for 14 years, in a statement released by the UAW. “But behind the scenes, the company is violating the labor rights of African-American workers who make those cars.”

If this organizing drive succeeds in the deep South, then perhaps there is some hope for labor. Go Nissan workers.

Oh by the way, where are the Democrats? Will Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer be supporting the union drive down in Mississippi? Mike Fiorillo pointed out the Democrat's noticable silence on ICEMail.

More coverage from Automotive News. Read the comments critical of the UAW. They look very similar to what teachers write here about the UFT.