In a long-standing saga, Southern auto workers have again rejected the United Auto Workers Union, this time after a 12-year campaign to organize the Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi. The vote was 2,244 to 1,307 against the union on August 3-4. The union supporters thought they had certain demographics in their favor, since 80% of the Nissan workforce is African-American, and data shows that African-American workers are more likely to vote for a union than others. Further, the union hoped to capitalize on certain second-tier status given certain workers progressing from temp status to regular status. The union had attempted to convince Nissan to remain neutral, as Volkswagen has agreed to in an election several years ago in Chattanooga (which the UAW also lost).
The union used as a campaign slogan "workers’ rights are civil rights" and brought in well-known speakers such as Senator Bernie Sanders and actor Danny Glover. The union also through certain preachers and civil rights leaders challenged Nissan for a meeting for a "fair and free" election, but the company did not respond. The company not only ran a strong anti-union campaign, but had a lot of support from the business committee and Mississippi political leaders. The Chamber of Commerce took out certain local media ads, and the governor issued an anti-union message. The company played anti-union videos in the plant and supervisors enlisted support for the company.
A union committee person said that the union filed for the election with less than half of the workers having signed union cards, which is fairly unusual for a union, apparently because the campaign had been going on for so long. The union had difficulty soliciting support in the plant because reportedly its in-plant organizing committee was not as large or effective as normal. Further, the union had difficulty figuring out who were eligible voters as temp agencies reportedly account for as much as 40% of the 6,400 workers. In-plant organizing committee members try to have one-on-one conversations with as many eligible voters as possible urging their support for the union.
After the election, the UAW president, apparently looking for a scapegoat, blamed the loss on a scandal that broke before the election where a union vice president was charged with taking bribes from Chrysler. Reports from the Nissan plant, however, suggest that the indictment was not a major campaign issue, and that many workers voted against the union in a fear of "rocking the boat" and risk losing their high-paying jobs that exceeded most every other similar job in their community.
Union supporters claim that rumors circulated that Nissan’s favorable program of leasing cars to employees having little credit at below-market rates would end under a union contract. One worker described a "three-bag" demonstration at an anti-union company meeting. One bag said "Nissan," another said "Employee," and another said "Union." Nissan speakers explained that Nissan comes to the table with everything in their bag, and the employees come and get some from the Nissan bag. But the union comes in empty-handed and has to fill up its bag from the employee bag.
