United Auto Employees President Shawn Fain during a web based broadcast updating union members on negotiations with the Detroit automakers on Oct. 6, 2023.
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DETROIT — The United Auto Employees has filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board against Honda Motor, Hyundai Motor and Volkswagen, accusing the automakers of unlawfully interfering with employee organizing, the union said Monday.
UAW alleges management at three facilities — for Honda in Greensburg, Indiana; Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama; and Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee — have participated in illegal “union-busting as staff organize to affix the UAW.”
Hyundai and Honda refuted the allegations. Volkswagen said it takes such “claims like this very seriously and can investigate accordingly.”
The union alleges the activities range from surveillance of staff at Honda to confiscating, destroying, and prohibiting “pro-union materials in non-work areas during non-work times” at Hyundai.
At VW, the UAW alleges management has “harassed and threatened staff for talking concerning the union; confiscated and destroyed pro-union materials within the break room; attempted to intimidate and illegally silence pro-union staff; and has attempted to illegally prohibit staff from distributing union literature and discussing union issues in non-work areas on non-work time.”
“These firms are breaking the law in an try to get autoworkers to sit down down and shut up as a substitute of fighting for his or her justifiable share,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a press release. “But these staff are showing management that they will not be intimidated out of their right to talk up and organize for a greater life.”
Spokespeople for Honda and Hyundai disputed the union’s claims, while citing it’s as much as staff on whether to affix a union.
“The union’s characterization of events in its press statement don’t present an accurate picture, and we sit up for having a good opportunity to present the facts through our participation within the legal process,” Hyundai said in a press release.
“Honda encourages our associates to have interaction and get information on this issue. Now we have not and wouldn’t interfere with our associates’ right to have interaction in activity supporting or opposing the UAW,” an organization spokesman said in an email.
The filings weren’t immediately available on the NLRB’s website, however the union provided them to CNBC.
The actions that prompted the allegations against the employers occurred through the last six months, in response to the filings, which were signed by UAW outside counsel Benjamin Dictor, an attorney with Latest York-based Eisner Dictor & Lamadrid.
The fees come roughly two weeks after the UAW said it was launching an unprecedented campaign to prepare 13 nonunion automakers within the U.S. after it secured record contracts with the three Detroit automakers — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis.
During a web based broadcast Monday night, Fain detailed additional measures of the organizing campaigns, including a “30-50-70 strategy,” referring to voting percentages in support or union organizing.
Fain said when organizing committees can get 30% of plant staff to sign UAW cards in support of representation, then they’re able to go public with their campaign; at 50%, Fain will visit the situation for a rally; and, at 70%, the UAW will demand the corporate recognize the union or take it to a vote.
UAW membership has been nearly cut in half since 2001, from about 700,000 that yr to 383,000 firstly of 2023. It peaked at 1.5 million in 1979.
Fain has vowed to maneuver beyond the “Big Three” and expand to the “Big Five or Big Six” by the point its four-and-a-half-year contracts with the Detroit automakers expire in April 2028.
Like with the union’s negotiations with the Detroit automakers and the union’s “Stand Up Strike,” Fain said no single company is the goal for the UAW.
“They’re all of the goal,” he said.
