The United Auto Workers, under new president Ron Gettelfinger, is again trying to ‘organise#; a foreign-owned ‘transplant#; car factory in the United States, this time targeting 7,500 workers at the Toyota car, minivan and engine plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, the Detroit News said.
According to the newspaper, the union has advertised in local newspapers to promote a card-check organising drive, which ends next Wednesday at a local convention centre.
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The newspaper says that, in a card check, workers sign notecards asking to be represented by the union and, if more than half the workers at a factory sign cards, the union can call a secret ballot election for representation at the plant.
The union has failed to organise overseas-owned assembly plants in the past, the Detroit News said, but officials have said they plan to address alleged safety problems within non-union plants in an attempt to win support among Toyota#;s workers at Georgetown.
The company denied safety was a problem at the plant, which builds the Camry and Avalon sedans, the Sienna minivan and V6 and four-cylinder engines, the newspaper said.
“We’ve always been a target, so this is nothing new,” Toyota spokesman Rick Hesterberg told the Detroit News. “Our team members have always told us that they don’t need union representation.”
The move to organise the Toyota plant is the second major action by the UAW in a fortnight since Gettelfinger was recently elected president at a union convention in Las Vegas.
Only last week, the union staged two-day strikes and pickets at four Johnson Controls plants supplying Ford and Chrysler, winning new contracts at three plants and representation recognition at the fourth.
The Detroit News said the UAW lost a vote at Nissan#;s Smyrna, Tennessee plant by a 2-to-1 margin last November.
UAW membership has halved since its 1970s heydey to about 750,000 and it now also recruits workers from non-automotive sectors.
