Nissan's Tennessee Worker Vote On Unionizing

NASHVILLE, Sept 27 Reuters reported that a vote likely to take place next week will decide whether the United Auto Workers union wins the right -- for the first time since it was founded in 1935 -- to organize a U.S. factory wholly owned by a foreign automaker.

The vote by more than 4,700 eligible workers at a Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, has been set for Wednesday, Oct. 3. UAW and local labor officials said the vote was expected to go ahead as scheduled, despite a pending appeal by Nissan.

``Right now I would say that it's very likely we'll go ahead and hold the election,'' said Joe Artiles, resident officer of the National Labor Relations Board.

In its appeal, filed with the NLRB in Washington last Friday, Nissan argued that the board's regional director had no right to bar workers at a separate Nissan facility from participating in the vote at Smyrna.

Artiles said the outcome of the appeal was likely to known before Wednesday. But even if the NLRB takes longer than that, he said the election was expected to proceed on time.

He added, however, that he may be ordered to impound uncounted ballots immediately after the vote, delaying results of the outcome pending a final ruling on the appeal.

``That rarely happens,'' Artiles said.

At a news conference on the outskirts of Nashville on Thursday, UAW Vice President Bob King said he was confident of a union victory when workers cast their ballots.

``There's a different energy now and a tremendous amount of community support,'' King said, referring to the latest of four attempts by the union to organize the Smyrna assembly plant.

The UAW dropped efforts in 1997 and 2000 after petition drives failed to win enough support, and a 1989 union certification vote failed by a margin of two to one.

The UAW objected to Nissan's request to allow workers from its Decherd, Tennessee, plant, about 70 miles (110 km) from Smyrna, on grounds that they had not petitioned for an election and threatened to dilute the voting strength of pro-union workers.

The Smyrna facility builds the Frontier pickup truck, the Xterra sport utility vehicle and the Altima sedan. Nissan said on Thursday that the plant will also start producing an all-new version of its Maxima sedan in January 2003.

PAST UAW FAILURES

They reported that though powerful, the UAW has failed repeatedly in previous attempts to organize workers at the U.S. plants of Japanese and European automakers. The only inroads it has made among foreign automakers have been in three factories set up as joint ventures with U.S. companies, which mandated the union's presence.

Foreign automakers have enjoyed a cost advantage over their U.S. counterparts because they offer their workers fewer retirement and health care benefits. Detroit's Big Three automakers pay the pensions and health-care costs of tens of thousands of retired workers.

Organizing new union locals has become what many labor experts see as key to the UAW's survival, as U.S. automakers have cut thousands of jobs from their U.S. factories over the past few decades amid an ever-shrinking market share.

UAW membership stood at about 671,850 last year, down from 1.5 million in 1979