Union demands more SC autos, manufacturers split in response | Business

The growing number of automotive industry workers in South Carolina is attracting the attention of labor unions, drawing mixed reactions from manufacturers and labor analysts.

United Auto Warriors President Ray Curry said the Palmetto State and other southern states are fertile ground for organizing campaigns now that dozens of automakers, battery factories and suppliers are preparing to convert to electric cars in the coming years. .

“I can tell you that we’re talking to workers in South Carolina, and the entire state, and we’re going to be very interested in representing them in the future,” Curry told the Post & Courier in an interview this month.

He said an organizing drive at one of the Charleston-area auto plants is likely this year, though he didn’t say which one.

The UAW is looking forward to a year of ups and downs. By 2022, South Carolina has attracted more than $6.5 billion in investments and more than 5,300 jobs from automakers, suppliers and battery companies.

The automotive industry already has a $27 billion economic potential and employs 74,000 workers. Unions represent only a fraction of these workers.

The UAW counts 55,000 members working in southern states — about 15 percent of the union’s active membership nationally — building Daimler trucks in North Carolina, sport utility vehicles in Tennessee and automotive and aircraft parts in Alabama.

About 2,500 members live in South Carolina, but most are retirees or surviving spouses. The number of UAW members working in South Carolina totals 364 statewide.

The Palmetto State has the lowest rate of unionized workers nationally — just 2 percent — about the same as the state’s overall rate, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

South Carolina politicians have long promoted the state’s right-to-work laws for manufacturers like Boeing Co., which opened an airplane plant in North Charleston to keep out unions that are common at West Coast factories.

Curry, who grew up near Charlotte and is a former director of the UAW region that includes the Carolinas, was undaunted.

“The South has changed in many ways, and it has opened up some economic opportunities in degraded areas that used to have textile[plants],” he said. “The South is growing, and the opportunities for workers in the South are growing. And the opportunities for workers in the South to be represented are growing.”

Growing support

The nation’s automotive industry was once a union stronghold, but membership has dropped from 50 percent of workers to 16 percent in the 30 years since the first free trade agreement between North American nations was ratified. Membership in Southern states is only 4 percent, and Adam Hersh says that’s one reason plant workers in the South make 15 percent less than their unionized counterparts.

“So we shouldn’t expect any new jobs to be good jobs right away,” said Hersh, senior economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, at the Federal Reserve’s Automotive Insights Symposium last week. of Chicago.

Carla Walter, senior director of employment policy at the Center for American Progress, is more optimistic.

During the symposium, Walter cited a Gallup poll that said, “We are at a point in the United States where public support for unions is at its highest level since 1965.” “We’re seeing workers at Starbucks and Amazon and the public sector and Microsoft push together and win. And so I think we’ve got a moment where the quality of work is at the forefront of the needs of the workers. The opportunity to make the EV transition where everyone cares and sees themselves.”

South Carolina automakers are divided on whether they support organizing at their factories.

“Volvo cars put people first and respect workers’ rights,” said a spokesman for the automaker, which builds the S60 sedan and – later this year – the battery for its EX90 sports utility vehicle. off Interstate 26 in Ridgeville.

“We respect our union members’ right to remain non-union and speak directly to the company,” she said.

Mercedes-Benz Vans, which makes the Sprinter commercial vans in North Charleston, said through a spokesman that it is “committed to being neutral on the topic of employee representation.”

“The choice to join a union is up to our team members,” a spokesman said. “We are committed to providing our team members with a safe and professional workplace where they can have open, continuous discussions with their colleagues and team leaders about work-related issues.”

Upstate, the UAW is offering workers at a BMW factory “no value at all,” said a spokeswoman for the factory that builds Model X sport utility vehicles for the global market.

“BMW strongly opposes any attempt to interfere with the successful workforce development that has led to the tremendous growth and success of its South Carolina operations over the past 30 years,” said Natalie Bauters, head of corporate communications for BMW Manufacturing Company.

Bauters said the German automaker has “built a unique and positive corporate culture here in the Upstate where BMW and its affiliates, contractors and suppliers are based on mutual trust, communication and a shared purpose.”

Core industry

UA’s Curry says management opposition or political animosity doesn’t concern him.

“We are interested in the workers and we can talk to the workers about what their true value is, their voice in the workplace and other things, even in the right-to-work regions,” he said. “Kentucky is a right-to-work state, as are Tennessee and North Carolina, and we’ve got great memberships in each of those places.”

Attitudes toward workers have changed dramatically during the pandemic, Currie added, adding that “individuals across the country want a better understanding and a better voice in what their daily lives are like.”

His North Carolina upbringing, Curry said, helps him when talking to workers at plants in South Carolina.

“I think knowing the cultural history and customs gives me an advantage,” said Currie, who earned an undergraduate degree from UNC-Charlotte and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Alabama.

Charleston, he said, was a popular vacation spot.

“Auto-manufacturing and component manufacturing was and still is a major industry in the Midwest, but that wasn’t always the case in the South,” he said. “When I was growing up, there were yarn mills and textile factories.”

Carey’s role in trying to organize South Carolina workers would ultimately play into his election for UAW president. His rival, Sean Fain, an electrician at the Stalantis auto plant in Indiana, has been described as a populist and has vowed to increase confrontation with management during contract negotiations. Current UAW contracts expire in September.

“This is our shot at real reform for the UAW and returning power and control of our union to the membership by electing leaders who are asked by the membership,” Fine told Reuters.

Curry, a former foreman at the Freightliner plant in Holly, N.C., was named union president in 2021 following the retirement of Rory Gamble. He is the former director of UAW Region 8, which includes 17 mostly southern states and Washington, DC.

The union mailed out withdrawal ballots on January 12th and members have until February 28th to return. The vote counting will begin on March 1.