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ReprintsUAW loses votes at JCI plants in Alabama, Mississippi
April Wortham
Automotive News
March 17, 2008 - 4:54 pm ET
Workers at two Johnson Controls Inc. factories in Alabama and Mississippi have handed the UAW back-to-back defeats. In a secret ballot election Thursday, March 13, workers at a Madison, Miss., factory voted 213 to 145 against UAW representation, said Johnson Controls spokeswoman Debra Lacey. The Madison factory supplies interior components to Nissan Motor Co.'s assembly plant in nearby Canton. The next day, workers at Johnson Controls' Cottondale, Ala., factory voted down the UAW 299 to 161, Lacey said. The Cottondale factory supplies seats and headliners to Mercedes-Benz U.S. International Inc. in Vance, Ala. Nissan's and Mercedes' U.S. factories are nonunion, although the UAW has tried several times to organize them. A Mercedes spokeswoman declined to comment on last week's vote. Efforts to reach a Nissan spokeswoman today were not immediately successful. Johnson Controls, with about 600 employees in Cottondale, is among Mercedes' largest suppliers in the Southeast. ZF Friedrichshafen AG and Delphi Corp. -- which employ about 300 each at their factories in Tuscaloosa County to support Mercedes -- are represented by UAW Local 2083. Johnson Controls also has a nonunion plant in Montgomery, Ala., supporting Hyundai Motor Co.'s assembly plant there. Lacey declined to disclose how many of Johnson Controls' U.S. plants are unionized. Johnson Controls, of suburban Detroit, ranks No. 4 on the Automotive News list of the top 150 suppliers to North American automakers, with estimated parts sales of $8.58 billion in fiscal 2006. |
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