Dive Brief:
- Workers at a Toyota engine plant in Troy, Missouri, went public about their campaign to join the United Auto Workers after over 30% of the plant’s employees signed union authorization cards, the union announced Wednesday.
- In addition to higher pay, the employees want improved working conditions at the plant, including more paid time off and better safety practices.
- The Troy facility is the first Toyota plant in the U.S. to go public about efforts to join the UAW after it won improved wages and benefits for its members from the Detroit Three last fall.
Dive Insight:
In November, the UAW launched a nationwide campaign to organize almost 150,000 non-union autoworkers at over a dozen automakers, including Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and Volkswagen, in the U.S. Since then, over 10,000 non-union autoworkers at four plants, including the one in Missouri, have signed union cards, according to the UAW.
Last month, the UAW announced it was committing $40 million through 2026 to support ongoing unionization efforts at non-union auto and joint venture battery plants. Non-union employees at more than two dozen other facilities are still organizing, the UAW said.
Workers at the Troy plant, which employs over 1,000 people and manufactures over 2.6 million cylinder heads per year, are paid significantly less than what UAW members make at the Detroit Three, according to the UAW. The union says production workers at the Toyota plant make over $4 an hour less than their UAW-represented counterparts, even after Toyota raised wages for non-union autoworkers in the U.S. last November.
“Seeing the new contracts with the Big Three, that’s when I realized we needed a union,” said Charles Lashley, a Toyota employee who supports the unionization efforts, in a UAW press release. “It was incredible that UAW members could bargain for those benefits and that pay. I don’t see why we should be paid differently.”
Employees at the Troy facility also want Toyota to improve its safety practices, which are lacking, said Jaye Hochuli, a team leader at the plant, in the UAW press release.
“The plant is not safe,” Hochuli said. “We’re organizing to fix what’s wrong and win the protection we need.”
Ongoing unionization efforts at other non-union automakers include public campaigns at the Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama, and Hyundai’s factory in Montgomery, Alabama.
