Now the kicker to this story is the workers at these plants in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee don’t want to unionize; in fact, they’re extremely happy with their jobs.
(Bloomberg) — The United Auto Workers is trying to hold its first successful organizing drive at a foreign-car factory in the U.S. To succeed, the union has to convince people like Rocky Long.
“I don’t see any problems here. I don’t see how they could help me out,” said Long, who’s worked at the Hyundai Motor Co. (005380)assembly plant in Montgomery, Alabama, for five years. Of the union representatives who came to his home this year, he said, “I really didn’t give them the time of the day.”
UAW President Bob King has pledged to organize a foreign automaker this year to expand its bargaining power beyond the U.S. companies it has negotiated with for seven decades. While Detroit is mostly retooling old plants, overseas car companies are building and expanding U.S. factories. The union is seeking to revive membership ranks that declined 75 percent to 376,612 last year from its peak of 1.5 million.
Standing in his way are rising sales and added investments at Hyundai’s Alabama complex and sites such as affiliate Kia Motor Corp.’s factory in Georgia. Already, King and his organizers are learning that workers at foreign-owned assembly plants, most of which are in the U.S. South, may not be easy to persuade.
“The UAW has to convince workers that they need a union when in fact without a union they got what they consider to be one of the best jobs they’ve ever had: a good manufacturing job with a company that’s expanding,” Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, said in an interview.
Michele Martin, a UAW spokeswoman, didn’t respond to requests for comment or to interview union supporters in Alabama. King hasn’t said which automaker he’s trying to organize.
While Hyundai officials declined to speak about specific pay, workers said the hourly rate is generous for the area.
Montgomery’s median household income in 2009 was $42,346, about $9,000 less than the national median and $6,400 less than in Michigan, according to the U.S. Census 2009 American Community Survey.
Wanda Carter, a Hyundai hourly worker, said she doesn’t see a need for a union at the Alabama plant.
“Hyundai does the best they can do to work with the Hyundai employees,” said Carter, who declined to give her age.
She wasn’t alone. Workers at another potential UAW target, Volkswagen AG (VOW)’s new plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, said they were excited just to have a job in the auto industry. There isn’t any talk of forming a union, said Terry Young, a line worker.
“You don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth,” said Young, 34.
The position is much safer than his previous job as a welder at construction sites and the pay is “great” for the area, he said.
“This is one of the good jobs,” Young said. “I love it.”
Naturally, the unions aren’t thrilled with all this so it’s time to play hardball.
King has said the union has set aside $60 million from its strike fund to organize the U.S. workers of an Asian or European automaker this year. He’s said the campaign will aim to put public pressure on the companies and accuse them of violating workers’ human rights if they try to block organizing efforts.
“If a company makes the bad business decision to engage in anti-union activity, suppress the rights of freedom of speech and assembly, we will launch a global campaign to brand that company a human-rights violator,” King said in a Jan. 12 speech in Detroit. “We do not want to fight, but we will not run from a fight.”