Toyota: 1; IAM: 0

Frank Williams
by Frank Williams

The IAM has backed down, at least for now. Reuters reports that the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers withdrew its bid to organize Toyota's Cambridge, Ontario plant after they found out they didn't have enough signatures to force a vote. When the IAM filed for the vote, they said they had "well over" the threshold of 40 percent of the total work force required by Canadian law to hold a vote. But then Toyota filed a modified list of employees showing they have 4,025 workers instead of the 3,100 the union claimed they had. Global Insight analyst Aaron Bragman warned "it would not be in Toyota's interests for the plant to unionize" because it could affect future Canadian investments by Toyota and the other Asian automakers. Regardless, the IAM said they'd continue their efforts to unionize the plant.

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  • GS650G GS650G on Mar 20, 2008

    Hey, I've got an idea! Let's unionize the Toyota plant when the exchange rate with the US (Toyota's primary market for NA vehicles) is already at historic levels! Do they think they are dealing with GM , Cry-sler or Ford?

  • CarShark CarShark on Mar 20, 2008
    ...and the workers are handpicked to resist unionization. @bluecon: How did they go about doing that? Just asking people on the application "Do you hate unions?"
  • Johnson Johnson on Mar 20, 2008

    So the union claimed they had "over 40%" of workers in favour of the vote by using a misleading and false number for the workers at the plant? Shame on them.

  • Anonymous Anonymous on Mar 20, 2008

    CarShark To be hired by Toyota you go through about a half dozen interviews. They are very thorough.

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