After Twice Losing Plant-Wide Elections, Union Looks to Organize Micro-Unit

The Nissan Plant in Smyrna, Tennessee faces yet another union election as unions continue to try to organize workers in the South. But this election comes with a twist.

The previous elections at Nissan have not been close. Workers in Smyrna rejected a plantwide union for the UAW in 1989 and 2001, while Nissan workers in Canton, Mississippi rejected facility-wide representation by the UAW in 2017.

Those were plant-wide elections. This election is for just 86 tool and die technicians.

But the election wasn’t always for just 86 employees.

In June 2021, the Regional Director of the local NLRB office ruled that such a small group was not lawful because those employees share an “overwhelming community of interest” with the rest of the facility’s production and maintenance workers. She found that the only appropriate group would be a wall-to-wall unit of over 4,300 production and maintenance workers.

Enter the Biden National Labor Relations Board.

On appeal by the union, the Biden NLRB overruled the Regional Director and is allowing the vote of just 86 maintenance and production employees.

This is a direct result of the NLRB’s renewed micro-unit rules.

Now, instead of needing nearly 2,200 pro-union votes to win an election, the union only needs 44 votes to get its first win inside a U.S. Nissan plant. It is much easier for the union to convince 44 people to vote in favor of it than to convince 2,200 employees of the same.

And if the union wins, the proverbial camel’s nose is under the tent.