Here's why Tennesseans should reject United Auto Workers tactics to organize workers
Recently, a media outlet reported that in 2023, the U.S. saw the highest number of labor strikes in two decades.
Strikes have become Big Labor’s weapon of choice against employers, exemplified most dramatically by the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike against the big three automakers in Michigan last year.
The mainstream media heralded the collective bargaining agreement resulting from that strike as a huge victory for workers. It was not.
Five thousand autoworkers were laid off, plants have closed after the contract was signed and there could be more to come. A third of vehicle suppliers were forced to lay off workers, as well.
The truth is the strike was a big win for the UAW, not the workers. And now the union is coming for our autoworkers in Tennessee. And if they are successful, there is little doubt their first order of business will be to call a strike, thereby potentially endangering thousands of jobs.
Another view: A prolonged UAW strike at General Motors' Spring Hill plant would have hurt Tennessee
President Biden supports UAW strategy
UAW President Shawn Fain has made a priority of organizing international automaking facilities in Tennessee and across the south. We need to understand that this is a strategy devised by union executives, not Tennessee workers.
The union has pursued an aggressive campaign to pressure workers into signing union authorization cards hoping this can replace an actual election. This is a common tactic of unions who generally don’t want workers to have access to a secret ballot election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board, which is the usual method of organizing a workplace.
Not surprisingly, political appointees in the Biden-Harris administration would like to make the union’s preferred form of “election” the law of the land.
The UAW is not averse to calling in the big liberal guns from Washington, D.C., and liberal states like California, Vermont, New York, and Massachusetts. In fact, 33 U.S. Senators sent a letter to the executives of international automakers essentially threatening that they had better agree to neutrality agreements or else.
A neutrality agreement is a contract between an employer and the union under which the employer agrees to all manner of pro-union terms prior to an organizing election.
Consider privacy concerns
For example, they generally require a card check election, as mentioned above, rather than a secret ballot election. In addition, according to Vincent Vernuccio of the Institute for the American Worker, these agreements “deny workers their right to weigh the pros and cons of union representation in private.
They’ll be forced to sit through United Auto Worker sales pitches and have union organizers pursue them during work breaks.”
Finally, workers will have to forfeit their right to privacy. Under these agreements, employers are obligated to hand over to the union the names and home address of workers.
“In short, organizers will target and pester workers until they sign a card saying they want representation,” Vernuccio adds. “All they may really want is for union representatives to leave them alone.”
Detroit shouldn't dictate to Tennessee
To sum up, the union desperately wants workers to increase its waning membership numbers. And it doesn’t mind restricting the rights of those same workers to accomplish their goal.
Tennesseans should recognize that international automobile manufacturers are a powerful driver of our state economy, providing thousands of good-paying, family-sustaining jobs with benefits.
They generate substantial state and local tax revenues that fund vital services and enrich communities.
We neither need nor want interlopers from Detroit and their allies in the Biden-Harris White House coming here and mucking it all up.
Mike Sweeny is the deputy director of Grassroots Operations for Americans for Prosperity Tennessee.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Union organizing: UAW tactics at Tennessee auto plants are unwelcome
