43
UAW renews efforts to organize at Southern plants
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo
Bob King, United Auto Workers (then) vice president is shown at the Ford Rawsonville Plant in Ypsilanti Township, Mich. The United Auto Workers union is positioning itself as a business partner rather than a snarling adversary as it renews a campaign to sign up workers at U.S. plants owned by foreign-based car companies. Bob King, the current union’s president, said it will play tough with Toyota, Honda, Nissan, BMW, Hyundai and others if they don’t agree to a set of secret ballot election principles that the union is backing. Companies that don’t sign on to the principles will be branded in as human rights violators, King told an industry group Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011.
Associated Press
DETROIT
The United Auto Workers union is positioning itself as a car-company partner rather than an adversary as it renews a campaign to sign up workers at U.S. plants owned by foreign-based car companies.
Yet Bob King, the union’s president, said it will play tough with Toyota, Honda, BMW, Hyundai and others if they don’t agree to secretballot election principles that the union is backing. Companies that don’t sign on to the principles will be branded as human-rights violators, King told an industry group Wednesday.
The UAW has had little success over the past 30 years in organizing workers at U.S. factories owned by Japanese, Korean and German auto companies. The companies built factories mainly in Southern states that aren’t union-friendly. Many also pay wages comparable to UAW-represented factories owned by Detroit automakers, but the foreign companies have avoided UAW rules that can make plants less efficient.
King, speaking at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit, said the union has learned from the Detroit companies’ near-death experience and has eliminated inefficient work rules, job classifications and other issues that foreign companies have feared. Instead, he said the union understands how globalization has made it necessary for the UAW to help auto companies make money by being more competitive.