DETROIT – The United Auto Workers 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 worker organizing, the union said Monday.
The UAW alleges that management at three plants – Honda in Greensburg, Indiana; Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama; and Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee – engaged in illegal “union busting” as workers organised to join the UAW.
Hyundai and Honda denied the allegations. Volkswagen said it “takes such allegations very seriously and will investigate accordingly”.
The union alleges that the activities range from surveillance of workers at Honda to the confiscation, destruction and prohibition of “pro-union materials in non-work areas during non-work hours” at Hyundai.
At VW, the UAW alleges that management has “harassed and threatened workers for talking about the union; confiscated and destroyed pro-union materials in the break room; attempted to intimidate and illegally silence pro-union workers; and illegally prohibited workers from distributing union literature and discussing union issues in non-work areas on non-work time”.
“These companies are breaking the law to get autoworkers to sit down and shut up instead of fighting for their fair share,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “But these workers are showing management that they won’t be intimidated from their right to speak out and organise for a better life.”
Spokespeople for Honda and Hyundai disputed the union’s claims, saying it’s up to workers to decide whether to join a union.
“The union’s characterisation of events in its press statement does not present an accurate picture, and we look forward to a fair opportunity to present the facts through our participation in the legal process,” Hyundai said in a statement.
“Honda encourages our employees to become involved and informed on this issue. We have not and would not interfere with our associates’ right to engage in activities that support or oppose the UAW,” a company spokesman said in an email.
The filings were not immediately available on the NLRB’s website, but the union provided them to CNBC.
The actions that prompted the charges against the employers occurred over the past six months, according to the filings, which were signed by UAW outside counsel Benjamin Dictor, an attorney with New York-based Eisner Dictor & Lamadrid.
The allegations come about two weeks after the UAW said it was launching an unprecedented campaign to organise 13 non-union carmakers in the US after securing record contracts with the three Detroit automakers – General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis.
During an online broadcast on Monday night, Fain outlined additional measures of the organising campaigns, including a “30-50-70 strategy”, referring to the percentages of votes in favour of or against unionisation.
Fain said that if the organising committees can get 30% of the workers at the plant to sign UAW cards in support of representation, then they are ready to go public with their campaign; at 50%, Fain will visit the site for a rally; and at 70%, the UAW will demand that the company recognise the union or take it to a vote.
UAW membership has almost halved since 2001, from about 700,000 in that year to 383,000 in early 2023. It peaked at 1.5 million in 1979.
Fain has vowed to expand beyond the Big Three to the Big Five or Big Six by the time the four-and-a-half-year contracts with the Detroit automakers expire in April 2028.
As with the union’s negotiations with the Detroit automakers and the union’s “Stand Up Strike,” Fain said no single company is the UAW’s target.
“They’re all targets,” he said.
