Nissan's Mississippi Plant Latest Battleground for UAW in Southern Plants

by Aaron Cole

Updated: December 22nd, 2020 Published: December 7th, 2015

The National Labor Relations Board accused Nissan of violating workers’ rights by creating a uniform policy for its workers at its Canton, Mississippi plant.

According to the charges, Nissan introduced a policy in 2014 that barred workers from wearing pro- or anti-union clothing at its Canton facility and at its plants in Smyrna and Decherd, Tennessee. Employees were expected to wear company-issued pants and shirts, and visible writing underneath those clothes was prohibited.

The United Auto Workers made the complaints leading to the charges, according to the Associated Press. The union has long sought to unionize workers at Southern U.S. manufacturing facilities with limited success. Last week, skilled trades workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted to join the UAW, the first victory for the union in decades.

A Nissan spokesman said the policy is voluntary and that employees could wear whatever they wanted as long as it adhered to the company’s dress code.

“Nissan’s uniform program is designed to help achieve the highest standards of safety and quality in all our manufacturing facilities,” Nissan spokesman David Reuter told the AP. “Employees have been able, and will continue to be able, to wear the clothing of their choice as long as it complies with the Nissan manufacturing dress code.”

According to the report, Reuter couldn’t provide documents stating that the dress code was only voluntary. A company handbook stated that employees had to wear shirts, pants and shorts provided by the automaker, and that if they wore undershirts, they could have no writing on them.

The NRLB’s regional director in New Orleans said Nissan doesn’t have a reason to ban T-shirts with writing on them.

“The T-shirts don’t hurt the cars,” Kathleen McKinney, the regional director of the labor board’s New Orleans office, told the Associated Press. “We consider that policy to be overbroad.”

The complaint is also targeting a temporary employee agency that provides Nissan with workers during especially busy plant periods. In March, UAW officials told the Wall Street Journal that they would target Nissan and its “abuse” of those temp workers, according to UAW Vice President Gary Casteel, who is in charge of the union’s presence at Southern plants.

#Canton #NationalLaborRelationsBoard #Nissan #Union #UnitedAutoWorkers

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Thelaine on Dec 07, 2015

Well 46, social "science" professors construct the world they live in. Marx is alive and well and sipping coffee in the faculty lounge. All is bought and paid for with your tax dollars and your children's lifetime of debt. They can afford to scold the job creators and taxpayers. They never have to create a nickel of wealth. They just suck it down like a cold beer.

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- VolandoBajo on Dec 09, 2015
  
  Touché, @thelaine. In my father's day, the road to a secure and successful life, if you weren't interested in or able to become a doctor or lawyer, was to get a good job with a good company, and hang on to it til retirement. Had I followed my father's example, I would have been dead in the water. I trained and became competent in skills that were in high demand, and became a roving consultant, hiring out to those who had a need and a means to pay. If my son tries to follow in my footsteps, he will be dead in the water. Now that field, IT, is rigged to enable staffing corporations to underpay foreign nationals to be able to do some contrived new skill, pay them about twenty per cent of what a US worker used to be able to get, and rent them out as a captive labor force (under H1-B) for about a third to a half of what a good consultant used to make. My son wants to start his own business. It will not be easy for him, any more than my path, or my father's, were easy for us. But I have to admit that for him to do so, and to deliberately dodge a mountain of student loan debt, shows a lot of brains, understanding, and balls. He has said he will take courses as he sees a need for them in order to run his business, sort of a la Stringer Bell in the Wire (though, of course, that is not his business...the risk/reward ratio is all wrong...most of those who try to become Stringer end up becoming Bodey.) He has come to understand that if he can develop a way to provide quality services to homeowners, at a fair price, and better yet can manage to build it to where he has crews doing it for him, he will have as good a chance at living a comfortable life as his grandfather and I got to do. I value the relatively large amount of education that I was able to afford. But even in the world as it was a quarter of a century ago, I would have been better off economically if I hadn't let myself get sucked into the monopoly that is higher education. This country is getting progressively more screwed up, and climate is NOT the root cause of it. If you think you have a better solution, take a crack at it. But what has happened in this country over the last fifty years is pathetic. The weak-sauce Marxism in the schools and in our entertainment is just a symptom. And I don't really see a massive cure. Hope I am just blind, and not prophetic...
  
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- Xeranar on Dec 09, 2015
  
  WOOOOOO! Poor trolling attack achieved! Points hit: Social sciences isn't really 'science' - Except, you know, over a century of scientific method research and countless examples of how the Social Sciences have impacted your life. Referencing Marx - Yes, because we're all deeply in love with Marx. You do realize that only right-wing loons fall for that, right? It's basically a dog whistle, like using 'thug' when you want to say 'black.' Instead, I would be considered a 'critical theorist' and while I am a socialist on many levels, I would be considered a Democratic Socialist which means I'm not so much aligned with Marx as vaguely in the same circle. Oh oh! You said 'tax dollars!' that means you're my boss! - Except you're not. I've also worked for a private university for a year. Never mind that I actually have made value by educating your brats and giving them an appreciation and knowledge of political science. Scolding job creators - You do realize that the term 'job creator' is not 'capitalist' and in fact mostly is based on a pretty loose concept of demand (in relationship to supply). But, sure, lets assume I scolded job creators (even though I didn't nor would I). I'm supposed to let capitalists and those with wealth dictate all the rules? Sounds like a great plan, so when are you going to go be a wage slave in China since that's about the best place to do what you claim. Never create a nickel of wealth - Nope, I've created an enormous amount of wealth because I educated your bratty children and give them the ability to make a living. You know how many students I've taught in the last few years that have gotten either analyst jobs, government jobs, or used their knowledge to enhance their goal to grad education? Of course you don't, but you also don't understand secondary and tertiary wealth development. So try again, twit. I'll be waiting patiently for your joke of a reply. I find it funny when people like you act tough on the internet. You wouldn't come to my University's office and try to make those claims, but on the internet everybody is a Rockefeller....
  
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- CJinSD on Dec 09, 2015
  
  Damn you, thelaine. You bulls-eyed his open wound with fewer words than I've wasted stating the obvious about what a tremendous burden he is to society. I'm humbled. Xeraner, you're delusional if you think there are people afraid of social science professors, and that there are substantive distinctions between socialists. That's a special kind of intentional ignorance.
  
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- Xeranar on Dec 09, 2015
  
  @CJinSD Awww, CJ, you think shilling whatever you sell to some bum in Sandy D makes you a grand capitalist in the form of Rockefeller? Everybody wants to be king of the hill and frankly nobody should be 'afraid' of social sciences but of your intentional ignorance you project. Look, disagreeing with you on policy choices doesn't make me ignorant, disagreeing with me about BASIC FACTS (which you and the rest of these right-wing nitwits) have been called out on numerous times is. But whatever, I find it funny that you think it's an 'open wound' when I still go in and teach my classes and have taught over a 1000 students so far in my career, I'll teach another couple thousand. It's laughable you think internet trolls make me cry at night...Good lord, delusional to boot.
  
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- Thelaine on Dec 09, 2015
  
  @VolandoBajo Thank you for your thoughts Volando. I read and benefit from all of your comments. I do believe there is reason for hope regarding post high school education, if not the nation itself. Many people have observed and experienced the flaws of a system designed primarily to benefit the institution. A large percentage of the professors and administrators are not preparing students for jobs or "critical thinking", but are indoctrinating them, taking them to the cleaners and putting them in a financial hole for much of their working lives. Education costs have skyrocketed and the usefulness of what is being taught is often negligible. With the US economy in the extended stagnation we now call recovery, students cannot afford to collect wildflowers and compete to determine who is the most oppressed. What cannot be sustained will not be sustained. People are beginning to see the truth and do not believe they will put up with this forever. The growth of online education and "extension" courses is just the beginning. I have already heard computer tech company executives quoted as saying that they think a college degree is more of a hindrance than help, since what is taught is so irrelevant to what they do and graduates have to unlearn before they can learn. Change is slow, but it's coming. There is too much money at stake.
  
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- Thelaine on Dec 09, 2015
  
  @CJinSD Heh, CJ. One for me, a thousand for you. Political "science" indeed. Fight the oppressor, little victims! Grubby little public treasury Gollums.
  
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- Xeranar on Dec 09, 2015
  
  @thelaine I'm waiting in my office for your excuse why you don't understand basic politics and resent the government for things that are perfectly normal functions of a first world system. Calling me names just means you have no argument. But thanks for playing the game.
  
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- VolandoBajo on Dec 10, 2015
  
  @Xeranar I am mostly a bystander in this beef war, @Xeranar, but please do me a favor and list the functions that you feel are legitimate to a first world government, so that others of us can analyze your ist to seee if we are in agreement or not. If you are confident in your ability to teach, you will have an opportunity to do so with that, even if there are a trolls in the room. We aren't all trolls, and I have seen you object to name-calling, while calling right wing conservatives nitwits. Or perhaps you are just saying that most of the nitwits are right wing, which would be another thing. But to cut to the chase, instead of just stating a lot of facts, many of which I willingly concede are correct, I would like to know what your position is as to what are the legitimate functions of government, if you don't mind. I suspect that I might agree with some, and disagree with others. But mostly, I would like to know your take, based on your expertise and experience. Thanks in advance...
  
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- VolandoBajo on Dec 10, 2015
  
  @thelaine Thanks @thelaine. Mostly I just try to "call 'em like I see 'em." That, and TTAC affords me an opportunity to live out my Walter Mitty fantasies of being a writer...what I started out to want to do in Jr. HS, then ended up crunching numbers in a variety of different ways for close to four decades. Now I get to be an armchair critic, with an occasional editorial thrown in for good measure. So I appreciate the fact that people like you tell me that you get some benefit out of my random insomniac scribblings. The B&B both provide a lot of food for thought, and serve as a mostly intelligent and open-minded audience as well. And then there are the notable exceptions, half entertaining and half they are like ants at a picnic, bedbugs, or a case of the chiggers. The people who don't agree with me and who debate the merits of various positions don't bother me in the least. But the ones who talk as if they are totally in support of a high and noble cause, but when challenged, drop immediately into a series of rants about how you are so stupid that they are going to ignore your points, always tickle my funny bone, at the same time they bring out my urge to squash them like a bug with logic. But the main attraction is intelligent discourse. TTAC at its best truly is an assembly of the B&B.
  
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- Xeranar on Dec 10, 2015
  
  @Xeranar Functions of a First World Government: 1.) Basic military protection - A maintained military of some kind. Our's is the largest and most expensive (largest in terms of reach and power, not in terms of sheer units, we concede that to China & India...and maybe Russia? I would have to look it up). 2.) Market correction powers - Central banking is a requirement to maintain the system. I have a problem with the emergency lending window being used indefinitely to lend as a monetarist policy tool, I think it has a place in the arsenal but it shouldn't be your ONLY weapon. When all you have is a hammer suddenly everything looks like a nail...which brings me to the next issue. 3.) Free education - That means up through functional training. Since companies have shed training programs due to a cultural shift and cheapening of labor we have to pick up the slack for them and increase our domestic burden. I can be taught sewing skills in a home, I can be shown how to work a CNC machine with some time and energy. But I can't be taught how to be an effective lawyer with a few weeks of legal training and the concept of 'internships' have become a free labor pool that is mostly illegal. So we have to address this by increasing what we pay for in our taxation to give people work skills that they aren't receiving and lengthening their time out of the workforce early on will actually help with the surplus labor we have. 4.) Free Healthcare - It's a right in every other country in the first world but our's and even now we've got a wonky system. A few countries use something similar to our private-insurer/public-pooling system and most work OK but the current system of emergency room care puts a strain on medical professionals and decreases the capital as we have to shift it to healthcare. If we increased that workforce to cover it with tax expenditures we could decrease the overall cost and increase our labor in that market, two birds, one stone. 5.) Environmental Regulation - Basic requirement to save the earth and balance it with the needs of citizens. The problem is we tend to balance it with a gun barrel to our heads for large corporations. We can work out a deal that isn't death to all or utter collapse. 6.) End the majority of poverty - Now this is more a series of changes but it is a function of the government. Giving cash handouts, guaranteeing a basic income, lowering the age for social security back to 65 or even down to 63 for manual and service laborers would all add back into the system. We would pay more in taxes but the least of us would be better served, there would be a larger economy because of that increased service, and a severe drop off in crime as these communities would out of poverty and sustainable. The problem is now too much is put on the vaunted love of 'capitalists' as if they're angels from heaven and anything they do is pure gold. I'm not for removing capitalism, I'm for harnessing it and making it work for us rather than them. On a side note: Educating is a secondary producer role. It's akin to a management position. When people tell me I don't create value I have to laugh because even more so than management my knowledge shared is multiplied many-fold and given over to these students who become better citizens. I know they're just saying this out of spite for being of the opposite political spectrum but when they make such a blunt-edged attack it makes their arguments that much more pathetic. I wouldn't mind if we had a European style right-wing party here but we have a dysfunctional fascist party who's built their agenda on two very simple premise: 1.) The government is giving things to people who don't 'deserve' it. That can be brown people, black people, or white people. They just feel like nobody deserves anything unless they 'earn' it. Note the quotation marks because those terms are so subjective that they become a 'who's pissing on my head' game of low man on totem pole. 2.) Because of 1 they don't want the government to provide basic services and functions unless they get them. It's like when Tea Partiers hold up signs about getting the government off 'their' medicaid/care. It's greed at it's basic core which is fine, you're allowed to be greedy, but the complete refusal to acknowledge that as the core of the argument is what makes it so hard to address. They swaddle their whole ideological underpinnings on a concept of meritocracy that we've proven with repeated studies just doesn't exist and when we try to actually level the playing field they fall back to 1 to claim 2. It's an endless cycle. Not to be a complete jerk, I think the state can go too far as well in providing everything. I think a centralized planned economy like Russia tried to do and China did are not great ways to live either. The market exists for a reason but it needs to be controlled. You don't let the lion eat you, you use the whip and chair. But you don't murder the lion just because it has claws and teeth. It has to eat (or in this metaphor create poverty) but we can minimize the damage it does by carefully watching it's diet (and alleviating poverty through careful measures and getting it more in line with Europe's 10% or under).
  
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VolandoBajo on Dec 11, 2015

@Xeranar Thank you for your detailed reply to my request for your veiwpoint on government functions. Overall, and at the risk of ruining my reputation for individual freedom, at least with some, I would say that that sounds like a pretty reasonable and comprehensive list, modulo a couple of caveats. We have got to fix our healthcare cost structure without reducing doctors to the level of, for example, a heating and AC technician. Mainly that means removing antitrust exemptions for insurance companies, and implenting reasonable controls and patent lives on pharmaceuticals. Most of the pharmaceutical companies are owned by old Euro aristocracy interests if I am not mistaken, and they are quite happy to squeeze all the oligopilistic profits they can out of US consumers' pockets. Perhaps a provision that pharmaceuticals sold in the US must be sold at a price no higher than the lowest price that they are sold anywhere, coupled with shortening the time to generic availability? And while I don't want to have to defend the current policies of the Republican party (if they even have a modicum of defendability), but yo have to recognize that the Democrat party has been riding on the coattails of just opposing what the Republicans want to do, and for the most part they get free publicity and support from the newspapers of record. I would feel more comfortable if the US left were more like some Latin American Social Democrat or Christian Democrat parties, though I believe the tent should be large enough to not be restricted only to those of a Christian persuasion. I agree that if we provided free education to those who demonstrate an ability to benefit from it, that society would reap benefits well in excess of cost. The waste of talent due to unaffordibility of education is a shame. And the dampering effect of huge student loans on trying to invest in startups for new ideas is a second, more hidden cost, but real nevertheless. And of course, regulation should not be so much administratively created as legislatively created, and with room for free and open debate, rather than having a situation where government agencies set policies according to their own narrow agendas. I am thinking primarily of EPA, USDA and Dept of Ed, though there are clearly other offenders. But I have to say that if that is the type of policies you advocate in your classrooms, I might disagree with some details of some of them, but as long as you didn't dictate that students had to give only the answers you thought were acceptable in the area of policies, I wouldn't consider it a proto-Marxist education, if my son was sitting in such a class. More like a call to return to first principles, something this country clearly needs. Your lion analogy to capitalism is a pretty succinct and accurate metaphor for the situation the US is in vis-a-vis capitalism today. I also agree that we need to get costs for national defense under better control. Clearly we could defend our country better with less expenditures, if the fraud, waste and abuse components were drastically reduced. Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)'s essay "War is a Racket" makes a pretty good argument for national defense without war profiteering. Should be required reading for every student involved in any way in studying social sciences, government policy or the like. To me, the evidence seems clear that in your case, calling you a Marxist or even ivory tower theorist amounts to a de facto troll. Although I know it is an unrealistic hope, I wish people here could stick to debating topics they have differing viewpoints on, and not read extra baggage into people's backgrounds.

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