WCA July 2011

From the americas

This view, expressed by a worker at a Kia plant opened in 2009 in West Point, Georgia, may be held by many others in foreign-owned automotive plants across the American South. But it is also specific to this man who, for 18 months before he joined Kia in August 2010, had worked for an industrial parts manufacturer that put its people on a one-week furlough every month. The factory job he landed painting Kia Sorrento SUVs has better pay and benefits and no enforced furloughs. His finances, he told Jerry Hirsch of the Los Angeles Times , are greatly improved. From Montgomery, Alabama, Mr Hirsch reported hearing similar stories in town after town along the southern tier of Auto Alley, a corridor that runs north-south from Lexington, Kentucky, to Montgomery. Foreign auto makers – including Honda, Nissan, Toyota (all Japanese-owned); Kia (Korean); and Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen (both German) – are placing their US factories in this region because of generous state and local incentives “and a workforce famously resistant to unions.” (“Who Wants a Union? Not Southern Auto Workers, It Seems,” 29 th March). Plants in the South now account for about half of all new vehicle manufacturing in the US, and none of the factories operated by the foreign auto makers in the region has union workers. According to the Centre for Automotive Research, average pay – wages and benefits – is about the same at $55 an hour for unionised workers in Detroit and those at Toyota’s US plants. The other non-union auto makers pay less: Honda, about $50 an hour, while Nissan, Hyundai, and Kia are at about $45. ❖ These comparisons are largely lost on auto workers in the South who, as Mr Hirsch pointed out, have intense loyalty to the companies that brought high-paying blue-collar employment to small towns and cities starved for jobs. Fairly typical is a man who has what he calls his dream job, correcting small flaws on the sedans coming off the assembly line at the Hyundai factory in Birmingham. One day, two organisers from the UAW knocked on his apartment door, hoping to sign him up for membership in the union. “I said I didn’t work at the plant,” he told Mr Hirsch. “I just wasn’t interested.” Elsewhere in automotive . . . ❖ In the first such case to go to trial since Toyota Motor Corp recalled millions of vehicles, starting in 2009, on reports of sudden unintended acceleration, a federal jury in New York on 1 st April cleared the Japanese company of the charge that a defect in a 2005 Toyota Scion caused it to suddenly accelerate and smash into a tree. The jury required less than an hour to deliver the verdict rejecting the plaintiff’s view of the accident: that it was caused by a defective floor mat. “We weighed all the evidence and came to the conclusion that there was not a defect with the automobile,” said the jury forewoman. ❖ Toyota’s global production, disrupted by parts shortages from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March, is not expected to return to normal until November or December. In April the company announced the extension of production cuts in North America into June, but pledged not to lay off any of the 25,000 workers in its 13 factories in the US and Canada.

“Some of Canada’s most ambitious companies have long been active in China,” Mr Tan said. “Many others are beginning to explore the great opportunities China has to offer. These firms need an experienced partner to help them develop and deploy a plan for success in China.” China Telecom Americas has its headquarters in Herndon, Virginia, and offices in several cities throughout the United States. Parent company China Telecom has the world’s largest fixed-line telecommunications network, with 174 million telephone subscribers and 65 million broadband customers. It also has 100 million mobile phone subscribers. ❖ Timken Co on 18 th April announced that it will increase steel output by 120,000 tons per year at its factories in Canton, Ohio. The company, which makes alloy steels, bearings, and assemblies mainly for auto producers, said that an upgrade at its Harrison plant has boosted output beyond the new mill’s rated capacity. Additions to its work force will, Timken said, enable it to further increase output there and at the Faircrest plant. Timken said it has invested more than $200 million in advanced technology since 2006. ❖ Asserting that steel making in northwestern Indiana is critical to the regional and national economy, Rep Pete Visclosky on 6 th April testified at an International Trade Commission hearing in Washington in favour of extending tariffs on some imported steel products from Brazil, Russia and Japan. As reported by the Munster (Indiana) Times , Mr Visclosky believes that the American economy is still in a fragile state, and that ending the import duties would encourage foreign countries to “resume their unfair trading practices that cost American jobs.” ❖ Latrobe Specialty Steel Co (Latrobe, Pennsylvania) is investing some $3 million in an expansion of its Wauseon, Ohio, plant, which makes edgewire and precision stainless steel wire from steels produced in the Latrobe mill. The company also plans to establish a business to supply titanium wire to fastener manufacturers serving the aerospace market. The search is on for a suitable location in Pennsylvania or Ohio. ( Pittsburgh Business Times , 8 th April). Steel

Automotive

Satisfied employees of foreign-owned non-union car plants in the American South resist recruitment by the United Auto Workers “We have good communication with management here. Why would you need a union? The only time a union shows up is to collect dues or at election time.”

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Wire & Cable ASIA – July/August 2011