UAW Transplant Organizing Campaign DOA?

by Edward Niedermeyer

Updated: July 7th, 2023 Published: March 15th, 2011

Do you recall the UAW’s last-ditch bid for relevance, its campaign to organize the transplant auto factory workers of America? The union’s campaign against the Hondas, Toyotas, BMWs and Hyundais of the world was supposed to begin in earnest in January, but all they have to show for it thus far is a perfunctory slap-down from Honda. So what happened? Where’s the confrontation, the picketing, the accusations of human rights abuses? Remember, the UAW has all of its skin in this gambit, now that i ts President has confirmed that

If we don’t organize the transnationals, I don’t think there is a long-term future for the UAW.

But based on the dearth of media reports on either the campaign’s success or failure, it would seem that the UAW has given up on the effort and is hoping everyone just forgets about it…

But the union hasn’t forgotten about its transplant offensive… it’s simply focused on its traditional format for confrontation, the quadrennial contract negotiations with the Detroit Three. And it seems the union president Bob King is so focused on sticking it to the union’s bailed-out hosts, he’s gone and dialed back all expectations of success on the transplant front. According to Bloomberg

King has said he expects to organize at least one non-union automaker this year.

“At least one?” Seriously? After all that bluster, that’s the best King and his allies can muster? Meanwhile, which transplant is the “at least one” that King thinks he has in the bag? And how did he make that sale? Until the UAW publicizes a successful organization, it sounds like the Great Transplant Organizing Campaign of 2011 is dead on arrival. Good thing there’s always the Detroit companies to kick around…

#PR #UnionNews

Edward Niedermeyer

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9 of 32 comments

Mikey on Mar 15, 2011

@Da Cayote ...Find me a place in a door panel of a vehicle built after 1960 where you could fit a Coke Bottle. As far as the rest of your post????? After reading it I'm fairly confident your one of those that would be convinced,and willing to remind others, that yours doesn't stink.

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- Dan on Mar 16, 2011
  
  The coke bottle story is too dated to mean much. But it wasn't even 6 months ago that dozens of Chrysler's slob workers at the JGC plant in Detroit were caught on camera pounding beers and smoking joints in the parking lot. It wasn't even 6 weeks ago that the same plant was in the news again. Because more of their slobs were caught doing the same thing.
  
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- Ronnie Schreiber on Mar 16, 2011
  
  Mikey, what are you talking about? There's plenty of spare room inside of 1960s and 1970s vintage cars to fit at least a 12 oz pop bottle. Also, doors aren't the only place in which autoworkers could leave surprises for the cars' buyers. In the bad old days of the early 1970s, when the UAW members and the car companies were at each others' throats, you'd be lucky if it was only something that rattled. Some cars made it out of the plants with human feces stuffed in behind interior panels.
  
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- Mikey on Mar 16, 2011
  
  @Ronnie......36+ years on the floor and I can tell you such incidents, 30 years ago were extremly rare, but not unheard of. My experience has taught me that about 10 percent of the population regardless of age,race or education background, would qualify as a$$holes. On the shop floor make that 15%. Factor that into 5000 people........and what have you got?
  
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- Windswords on Mar 16, 2011
  
  Aspade, Dozens? Really? Is that the new math? "Fifteen workers at the plant in Detroit were caught on hidden video...". I'm no friend of the unions but exaggeration and painting with a broad brush ("Chrysler's slob workers") doesn't help you make your point.
  
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Toxicroach on Mar 15, 2011

If I were a worker at a non union auto plant I would have no desire whatsoever to join the UAW. Competing against them is better job security than being them. With the two tier wage system, the pay isn't much better. And they know that if they join the UAW they'll just be setting themselves up for a long, slow decline. They're the ones who have been eating the UAW's milkshake for 40 years; I imagine they'd be leery of joining them when they are fighting for bare survival. I'm just not seeing the appeal.

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Robert Schwartz on Mar 15, 2011

Labor shot its wad in Wisconsin. They have nothing left for the UAW.

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- Rob Finfrock on Mar 16, 2011
  
  On my drive home yesterday from my merit-based, right-to-work job, I passed a line of picketers outside Corrales Elementary School. Their signs had such messages as "We stand in support of Wisconsin teachers" and "I don't make $250,000, I need help!" If I actually thought their protests were doing any good, I would have perhaps stopped and engaged them (respectfully!) on the issue. The "I need help!" sign struck me as particularly insipid. Didn't you know that coming in, and did you not make your choice instead to make less? Is it anyone's fault but yours that you don't make $250K? In the end, I decided I'd rather go home and enjoy the financial perks of not being an elementary school teacher. What it comes down to is, unions are done. They're dying. We all know it, even the unions know it. Leaders in the government are against them, the general public is increasingly against them, their own memberships are increasingly against them. What's left? Sheer and utter irrelevancy.
  
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HerrKaLeun on Mar 15, 2011

I wonder which transplant workers want to have 2-tier wages unless all current workers get first tier :-) Even if I didn't have an opinion on unions, why do they need to "conquer" other workers. If unions are so great, then the workers in the transplants would come up with that idea on their own. I'm not saying unions are completely useless. If nothing else, they give management some stability. But, the way they are organized now is completely ridiculous and if they don't change they will disappear. Hope at some point all states have freedom and "right to work". Nothing against unions, but forced membership just is not good, no matter how good the intention is.

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