Roy Exum
Woody Hayes, the great Ohio State football coach, used to teach his players to “paralyze resistance with persistence” but, my word, the likable theory has taken quite a beating in the past two years at the NTN-Bower ball-bearing plant in Hamilton, Ala. The workers there voted to decertify from the United Auto Workers union two years ago but getting the UAW out the door has turned out to be worse than getting rid of bed lice.
Last Wednesday the workers held an unprecedented fifth vote to remove Local 1990 from the premises and barring a last-minute objection today, company employees are telling disgruntled UAW leaders not to let the door hit ‘em in the backside when they finally leave the plant.
Last week the workers voted 74-52 to tell the UAW to take a hike and it was the fourth time the union had lost a vote at NTN-Bower.
In South Carolina, where a heavy non-union air prevails, Johnson Controls in Florence just decertified the UAW in another ugly break-up but with outspoken politicians and a bitter past, there is almost a celebration. “The first thing the (site consultants) ask is, ‘Do you have UAW facility or Teamsters facility in your county? If you do, we will not look, and we will not put anything within a 40-mile radius of a UAW facility.’”
In Alabama, the employees won the first two elections but the “Obama National Labor Relations Board tossed out the results when the UAW filed objections. In January of 2014 a third election was held and the UAW had a close victory until the ballots were counted. There were 148 cast but only 139 of 140 employees had voted and the employees alleged the UAW had stuffed the ballot box. A fourth vote was authorized and in February the employees won handily, 82-50.
UAW lawyers convinced the NLB to have a fifth vote and, the union’s reaction noted, today is the last day an appeal can be made following an election. “It shows an ugly double-standard in federal labor law,” said a Right-to-Work official after Ginger Estes originally filed the decertification papers. “While the activist Obama NLRB makes it easier to organize workplaces … union lawyers are allowed to game the system by blocking or overturning workers’ votes against an unwanted union.”
He then stated the obvious. “It shouldn’t take five votes to get rid of a union that has clearly overstayed its welcome,” said Mark Mix, the president of the National Right to Work Foundation that is studying the UAW’s efforts to organize Volkswagen in Chattanooga. “The NLRD has clearly stacked the deck against workers seeking to remove unwanted unions. Union officials are allowed to throw out results that don’t go their way and hold onto power. That’s not right.”
The UAW has been at the NTN-Bower plant since 1976 but union membership has been on a steady decline. From the year 2000 to 2014, union jobs in the manufacturing sector fell by almost 50 percent to 1.1 million today and installation, maintenance and repairs, once a union strongholds fell from 933,000 to 655,000, according to a Pew research study.
At the same time union members in management occupations rose from 438,000 to 562,000 but companies continue to drop away from unions. Johnson Controls, based in Florence, S.C., decertified from the UAW earlier this month after a tumultuous five years. Many felt Johnson Controls’ union involvement hurt the state’s ability to draw in new companies.
Labor lawyer Michael Carrouth discounted such a thought. “The union was a deterrent for some industries, but the big thing was the unions didn’t take root. It should have never been held against the area or the people from an economic development standpoint,” he said. “It really was an outlier. It never was going to be some launching point, especially for the UAW, which has lost over a million members over the last decade.”
Carrouth also suspects the divorce between Johnson Controls and the UAW was a mess. ““I’m sure it got pretty intense in there once the company notified the union that they were going to withdraw recognition when the contract expired,” Carrouth said. “The union at that point is fighting for its life and it’s not going to accept easily the voice of the majority. It’s going to fight to maintain its relevance and position.”
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, whose development teams just lured Volvo to the Palmetto State, said the UAW presence stigmatized that part of the state in a March speech. “There is a belief that still lingers that we’re trying to get rid of is that things were unionized here not too long ago,” Haley said. “So manufacturers are fearful of this area. We have tried to tell them that that is not the label we want the (area of the state) to have, and we don’t think it’s a realistic situation.”
Joe W. King, executive director of the Florence County Economic Development Partnership, said Johnson Controls booting the UAW was a “game changer” as far as he is concerned. “I think its good news for Florence County, for the Pee Dee area, and for the state,” King said, not mincing his words. “In the past, we have had several projects that Florence could have received a look, but the site consultants, the first thing they asked, ‘Do you have UAW facility or Teamsters facility in your county? If you do, we will not look, and we will not put anything within a 40-mile radius of a UAW facility.’”
I wonder if the employees at Volkswagen know the real truth. It might be worth a Google search or two before some careless thinking gets our community into a real mess.
royexum@aol.com