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TechnoratiHardly a Union Hotbed, Toyota's Kentucky Plant Is a Test for Organizers
GEORGETOWN, Kentucky - For the last two decades, the United Automobile Workers union has been a constant but largely neutralized presence in this rolling patch of central Kentucky horse country.
Union organizers arrived, informational leaflets in hand, not long after Toyota opened its first American factory here 22 years ago. At shift changes, the organizers would gather outside the factory exits to pass fliers to workers as they drove home.
Most of the time, cars did not stop. And that's pretty much the attitude union organizers here have faced for the last two decades. They would occasionally rally small groups of workers, but never made much headway. Their biggest obstacle was a largely contented Toyota work force.
But now, emboldened by Toyota's plans to cut labor costs at its American factories, the U.A.W. is making its most concerted push yet to organize workers at the Japanese automaker's largest American plant.
The movement, led by a small but vocal group of workers with help from the union, is drawing attention to issues like wage stability and workplace safety. It is a departure from previous efforts, which focused mainly on gathering workers' signatures on union cards.
Organizers have seized on leaked Toyota internal documents that show the company wants to cut $300 million in labor costs in North America by 2011. They have joined forces with community activists, local politicians and workers' rights advocates to make their case. Organizers have also enlisted the help of ministers, who are speaking out publicly on the union's behalf.
Unionizing the Georgetown plant would be an enormous victory for the U.A.W., as it would be the first time it had organized a factory wholly owned by a Japanese automaker.
The U.A.W. has never collected enough signatures in the past to force a vote by all 7,000 Georgetown workers. And even if it gets a vote, that is only the first step. Workers at Nissan's plant in Smyrna, Tenn., have voted twice on U.A.W. membership and rejected it.
Organizing Toyota would also bolster the U.A.W.'s diminished clout at a time when Detroit's Big Three are cutting jobs, closing factories and expecting concessions from the union in ongoing contract negotiations.
The union needs a foothold in the company that is on track to displace General Motors as the world's largest automaker, said Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "Unless they can organize it, the union's power will inevitably be flushed away," he said.
Organizing Toyota promises to be difficult, and it remains unclear how much real progress will result from the latest push in Georgetown. While organizers said they have seen an increase in attendance at their regular meetings, the U.A.W. will not say how many Toyota workers are actively supporting the new effort. Toyota officials estimate the core group of union loyalists to be less than 100.
"If our team members in America decide that they need a union, that's fine," said Pete Gritton, vice president of human resources for Toyota's manufacturing operations in the United States. "But the truth of the matter, so far, has been they've not elected to go that way."
In interviews, pro-union workers at the Georgetown plant said they are fighting the perception that unions are irrelevant, even dangerous to Toyota's future.
"In the past, we were kind of like bulls in a china shop," said Tim Unger, 51, who started at the Georgetown plant 18 years ago in the plastics division and now works in quality control. "If you weren't pro-union, we didn't want anything to do with you. Now we want to take our time and find out what's on the minds of our co-workers. What don't they understand? What do they like about Toyota? What don't they like about Toyota?"
Recently, the company has taken a harder line on wages and labor costs, giving union organizers what they perceive as an opening. Just last week, Toyota told workers in Kentucky they would have to start paying a premium for health insurance for family members.
And over the last few months, Toyota management has summoned small groups of workers at its colossal vehicle assembly complex here to attend a presentation titled "Growing in a Changing Market: State of the Automotive Industry." Executives describe the presentation as a routine update for workers.
Workers are shown a map with the locations of shuttered Big Three auto plants and a breakdown of autoworkers' average wages, from Thailand to Mexico. While no Toyota executive explicitly says it, the theme of the presentation, according to workers who have seen it, is that Toyota will end up in the same troubled waters as G.M. if something does not change.
"That doesn't sit well," said Charles Hite, 41, who works on the loading dock at the Georgetown plant and has been with Toyota for 15 years. "They want people to fear losing their jobs."
Mr. Hite said that before one of the presentations recently, he gave to his colleagues copies of a news article about the millions of dollars in bonuses Toyota executive had received this year. A Toyota supervisor asked him to stop, he said.
Toyota declined to elaborate on the presentation or provide a copy of it to The New York Times. But the company said it was not considering cutting wages, only looking at how it might reduce wage increases in the future and shift more costs to employees.
A year ago, the U.A.W.'s efforts might have barely caused a stir. But in February, that changed when an internal Toyota document started making its way around the factory floor. It spelled out, in part, how the company would reduce labor costs by setting hourly wages based on what other manufacturers in the area pay, not on auto industry standards.
In Kentucky, where the average worker earned about $36,000 last year, $70,000-a-year Toyota jobs are among the best to be found.
The company fired two employees who had distributed the document. The U.A.W. said it has filed a complaint on behalf of the two employees with the National Labor Relations Board.
Terry Thurman, the new U.A.W. vice president for organizing who once led the union's Indiana and Kentucky region, pledged "all the assistance we can" at an organizing rally in nearby Lexington in March.
Toyota's cost-cutting plans were leaked just as it was about to announce another quarter of record-breaking profits. And in May, the company reported that it earned $13.68 billion last fiscal year - its largest profit ever.
"This company is making billions of dollars, and it's going to start making us pay?" said Robert Bingaman, 53, a maintenance worker at the Georgetown plant who supports the U.A.W.
But unlike many of his co-workers, Mr. Bingaman knows what it is like to have a union job. Twenty years ago, he lost his job at a General Motors plant in Hamilton, Ohio, where he was a member of the U.A.W.
"At Toyota, whatever they want to do, they do," he said over lunch at the Big Boy down the road from the Toyota factory one recent summer afternoon. "At G.M., under a contract, they couldn't do anything without the rank and file agreeing. You had someone to fight for you."
In addition to using wages as a bone of contention, the union is hoping it can make headway with the heavy physical toll of assembly line labor.
At the U.A.W. Resource Center about a half mile from the Georgetown plant entrance, volunteers pore over injury logs from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that track every lacerated finger and ruptured disk reported in the Georgetown plant.
They said they have already identified more than 1,800 injured workers who are no longer employed at the plant. And they are building a database to track injuries by type, to help reinforce their point that the job puts tremendous stress on a worker's body. Callers who reach the answering machine at the resource center are asked, "Have you thought about how many surgeries it takes to build a Camry?"
Toyota has disputed the notion that the Georgetown factory is a dangerous place to work. And records from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration show that the company has been cited only once since 1998 for a safety violation.
For workers like John Williams, 41, who has spent the last 18 years at the Georgetown plant, the idea of having a larger voice in Toyota has appeal.
Mr. Williams said he envies the contracts his counterparts in Detroit have. "What they have is what the Big Three negotiated with them," he said. "What we have is what Toyota gives and takes from us."
© 2007 The New York Times
16 Comments so far
Show Alldustinchicago: It really depends where you are. Many unions could organize at your workplace but more information would be needed.
The "Big 3" did not close plants because of employee wages and union demands. They made poor design choices and spent billions of dollars on advertising in their attempt to sell their trash to the gullible American consumer who got tired of buying garbage and turned to foreign cars. Now Toyota is trying to implement the poor personel policies from the "big 3".
They are playing into the hands of the union and they might possibly blow their market share because of the treatment of their employees.
Come on union!
I used to work at Toyota of Kentucky. It was hell. Some people put up with it without trying to get a union because:
1. It's a red state. They've drank the koolaid and are largely anti-union.
2. They don't want to lose their jobs as so often happens to anyone who talks pro-union.
3. It is a lot of money. Most understand that they'll never make it to retirement (bodies usually breakdown unless you get a job off the assembly line) so they just try to save up money while they work there. There's a huge pool of poor people there who are willing to put up with the back breaking conditions.
Having a factory in a poor red state is the next best thing to having one in a third world country.
I worked as an engineer and would have to add that there was a Japanese glass ceiling and in general the Japanese really didn't treat the Americans very well. Extreme segregation. Virtually no communication at all between the two except at the highest levels.
Of the ten jobs I've had ranging from national lab scientist, hospital orderly, military linguist, pizza boy, etc, working as an engineer at Toyota of Kentucky was the absolute worst.
Everyone here complains about capitalism... but that's what it is... a monster that needs to grow and grow everyday. Unions help get a bigger piece of the pie for the worker. If the company wants to close down they can do that without a union, as well as with a union.
Pretty soon its going to be:
"I'll work for $5.00 an hOur..."
"Well, i'll work for $3.00..."
"Well I'll work for 2.00..."
"Well I'll work for food..."
We need unions. Read Confessions of a Union Buster by Martin Levitt. If anybody talks bad about unions, you should punch them right in the face. When are people going to stop accepting lies for a miniscule amount of comfort?
I am all for unions, and always disheartended to see that the percentage of unionized labor in this country has drastically diminished- mostly due to concerted efforts by Owners/Management.
But, if I may chime in, the middle class was largley created by an increase in manufacturing jobs that required less-skilled (poor wording- no offense intended) workers. That meant more people could get better paying jobs.
Now many of those jobs are being outsourced (same skills, less pay and safety), but let us all remember that those jobs (not just auto) that aren't being replaced overseas are being replaced by MACHINES. Also, anything that can be done remote/online will be.
Now how do we sustain (or build up a weakened) middle class? The jobs that will be left are only those that have to be done in person, by a person. Things like bartenders and neurosurgens. Obviously, we need extreme education reform- from a factory-style babysitting to one that creates entrepenurial-management types who can really push any service job and who create their own wealth- along with equitable tax distribution into more government services that decrease the cost of living.
So, my question: I am an admin who is moving up the office management ladder- are there any unions I can join? Or start?
As long as trade unions maintained a decent pay scale, benefit package and working standard, non-union employers in same-type businesses would give their employees almost as much as the union employees, only to keep their workers happy enough not to join the union. As unionized companies systematically close their facilities and 'lay-off' the workers, the non-union people start seeing less pay raises, reduced benefits, an increased workload, and less 'job protection' from management. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule but not many.
My guess is that if the Toyota workers at the plant vote to join the UAW, which I hope they do, then management will circulate rumors about closing the plant and relocating to Mexico, China, India,Timbuktu, or elsewhere, hoping the fear of losing a job will keep them in line with the company's position.
This is just one more episode of the disease called 'capitalism', and it is a carcinogenic ideology.
A capitalist never has enough. The appetite for money is insatiable. You want to make a million bucks. Fine. You make it and are used to it, and now you want to make ten million. So you cut corners and exploit more people and resources until you have ten million in the bank. That's still not enough! Why not a hundred million or a billion? Now, to make even more money, you have to cut wages and benefits from the workers who actually produce the wealth for you in order to increase your wealth. Am I clear on this?
It happens all over the world. The nature of the beast. No real allegiance to the employees who create the wealth for the company by producing the goods and services. The bosses and the investers get most, and what is left is divided amongs the workers.
Go to a good library or maybe search the internet, but I highly recommend the book, GLOBAL REACH, by Richard Barnett and Ronald Mueller, published in 1974, but reads like it was written this morning. Perhaps you may agree.
Another labor classic, LABOR'S UNTOLD STORY, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. It is excellent!
By the way, Walter Reuther, one of our greatest union leaders initiated health coverage in the UAW. Other unions started negotiating health and welfare coverage into their contracts when they saw how well it worked with the United Auto Workers.
How many old-timers remember when you applied for a job, your 'fringe benefits' were also highlighted along with job description, etc? That term has been 'passe' for too long.
Greed is a disease. Toyota executives dream of the day that none of their employees will be able to afford a car they build, so that they can have the whole pie.
Henry Ford, right wing anti-semitic fascist that he was, devoted himself to making the pie bigger. His greed disease was not so bad that he would destroy the future intentionally for instant gain.
Unions formed in America today can easily be destroyed tomorrow; all a company has to do is move the factory to Mexico, Central America or China and that puts an end to that.
That was the whole point behind free trade; to destroy the unions in America.
Gotta love corporate-speak ...
"But the company said it was not considering cutting wages, only looking at how it might reduce wage increases in the future and shift more costs to employees."
So, they aren't 'cutting wages', but they are looking to 'shift more costs to employees.'
Bottom line = smaller paychecks.
No work - no wages; no wages - no customers; no customers - no factory; no factory - no work.
Agreed.
I lived in the bluegrass for a number of years and was often working around the auto industry. To the extent that Toyota, and many (but not all) of it's part suppliers paid a decent wage and benefits, it is because of the prevailing wage set by the unions orgainzing. It is a fact that wherever unions can organize a sufficient critical mass of workers, simple economics will drive the wages up even at non-union workplaces, although in the latter case, union members are justifiably miffed at such scab-freeloaders.
But if union membership drops below a certain level, there will be a lag where wages and working conditions stay good, then a race to the bottom begins. First hours and working conditions, then fringes, then wages. This is the current situation not to far to the east of the Kentucky Bluegrass - in union-hating Massey's, ICG's, and Murray's coal mines.
The primary reason that working conditions have generally been good at the non-unionized North American Japanese auto plants is the UAW's presence and vigilance. As GM/Ford/Chrysler experience reduced market share, the UAW may have less presence and influence on the Japanese plants unless they are able to organize at least some of them.
Having worked in union and non-union jobs (none of them in the auto industry)I prefer to work without the constraints of a union, however, due to management's consistent failure to provide a safe workplace, I support unions and regulation of business.
Redgeek is correct in noting that until the US Government implements a single-payer medical insurance system EVERY on-shore manufacturer will be at a competitive disadvantage and that will increase friction between manufacturers and unions.
Cars can be designed and built locally in small craftsman shops. Union organization is not needed. We have to get away from concentrated capital ruling markets, governments and people. People don't need capital.
You mean to say that executives, the millionaires and billionaires, their legal teams and their lobbied politicians, their ability to out-source and offshore at will, etc. are actually running the show?
Oh, I guess they are.
The UAW raised living standards for everyone in the US. We wouldn't have a middle class without the big industrial unions and how they raised standards and expectations for work. Health insurance at the workplace was created through union contracts. Other businesses followed suit only because they needed workers. You don't like the UAW? Don't use your workplace health insurance. Give back your overtime pay, etc.
The US auto industry is declining, but it isn't the fault of the UAW. The UAW doesn't design cars and stay asleep as other automakers innovate. That's the executives.
Now, there is a cost difference between foreign produced (ie, not this US-based Toyota plant) due to the cost of health insurance of the workers being built in to the cost of the car. That adds $1500 plus. In other nations, universal healthcare spreads out the burden and controls costs while providing better health care. But US auto companies continue to oppose universal healthcare.
So who is responsible for the decline of the US auto industry? The executives, not the UAW.
the goal of free trade is to flatline wages around the world, once America is destroyed economically from it, there is no one else to fight for workers. Say good bye to your children and grandchildren's future if they win...the robber barons are winning big time again. The code phrase we need such and such 'to be more competitive' is the first clue that you are being lied to.