TPT March 2011

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March 2011 91 ›
Global Marketplace
action against Halliburton and its chief executive. The justices
are expected to hear arguments in the case in April, with a ruling
due by the end of June. The Obama administration had urged the
Supreme Court to hear the appeal by the plaintiffs.
Automotive
With the US automotive industry on
the rebound, a labour union flexes its
muscles – perhaps prematurely
Having seen its numbers fall from a high of 1.5 million in 1979 to
around 350,000 today, the United Auto Workers union (UAW)
is actively renewing a campaign to sign up workers at US plants
owned by foreign-based car companies, mainly in the southern
states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky. Union
leaders believe themselves to be in good trim for the effort. The
UAW has largely abandoned the featherbedding demands that
roiled its negotiations with General Motors, Chrysler and Ford and
alienated the efficiency-minded Asian car companies that have
turned themselves into strong rivals to the Big Three.
It is possible to see this membership initiative as misconceived – in
timing as well as tone. Abailout by Washington only narrowly rescued
the US automotive industry, and the near-death experience is still
fresh in many minds and nervous systems. Moreover, “human rights
abuses” is a heavily freighted expression, perhaps especially in the
American South. Yet this is the charge that the UAW leadership is
apparently prepared to raise with Japanese, Korean and German
auto companies with factories across the southern states. Their
offence? An allergy to labour unions.
Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Nissan and BMW all have plants in
the US, all non-union and mainly in the South. Bob King, the UAW
president, speaking 12 January at the Automotive News World
Congress in Detroit, said that the union intended to present the
companies with certain demands.
The non-compliant among them would, he said, be branded as
human rights violators. Demonstrations, and campaigns against
them among the buying public, would follow.
“I would be very, very concerned if I was an auto manufacturer,”
Mr King told the industry group in Detroit, “[about] having young
people, college students, young college graduates, feel that I was a
human rights violator.”
The UAW released a list of 11 principles “for fair union elections” that
it wants the foreign-based manufacturers to adopt, and said it had
set aside $60 million of its strike fund to spend on organising efforts
within the plants of those companies. The stated aim is to enable
workers to decide – without intimidation or fear of reprisal – whether
or not they wish to unionise.
› Steve St Angelo, Toyota’s top manufacturing executive in the
United States, had no immediate comment on the UAW initiative,
but he did note that his company has a set of principles of its own
– known as The Toyota Way. “Those principles have worked very
well for us over the years,” he told the New York Times. “We provide
competitive wages and benefits.”
Mr St Angelo also pointedly observed to the Times’s Detroit editor
Nick Bunkley that Toyota did not lay off any employees during the
recent recession: not even when it temporarily stopped running
some plants to let inventories thin out. The Japanese company has
five assembly plants in the United States.
A UAW-represented plant in California that was operated as
a joint venture of Toyota and General Motors closed last year,
and the union has been pressuring Toyota to rehire its workers
when the plant reopens to build electric vehicles in a partnership
with Tesla.
› Mr Bunkley drew attention to something that may complicate
Toyota’s response to the union’s recruitment effort: in Japan,
the Toyota Motor Workers’ Union has more than 60,000 members.
Mr King of the UAW said that car makers who operate with unions
in their home countries but discourage unionisation in the United
States are treating their American workers like “second-class global
citizens.” (“UAW to Renew Organizing Efforts at Foreign-Owned
Plants,” 12 January)
Other automotive news . . .
› At the North American International Auto Show, held in
Detroit in January, Volkswagen introduced a midsize sedan
designed specifically for American consumers. The awkwardly
named 2012 Passat – new body, same nameplate – is to be
made at a $1 billion factory going up in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
It will be the first car that Volkswagen builds in the US since the
1980s.
By expanding in the United States, Volkswagen can avoid high
German labour costs and position its newcomer to compete on
price with the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and Hyundai Sonata
– as well as with improved midsize sedans from General Motors
and Ford. The base price of the new entry in that segment is
expected to be about $20,000, some $7,000 under the starting
price for the “old” Passat.
› Honda Motor Co, of Japan, is selling its 26% stake in Hero
Honda Motors, its longtime joint venture with the Hero Group,
India’s leading maker of motorcycles. The buyer is the Munjal
family, current owners of an equal 26% stake in Hero. While there
was no disclosure of details of the transaction, to be completed
this year, Honda’s holding in the company is worth approximately
$2 billion.
The joint venture was formed in 1984, in response to Indian
legislation that barred foreign companies from establishing
subsidiaries in the country without a native partner. These rules
were later relaxed, leading to the formation of Honda Motorcycle
& Scooter India in 1999, which established Honda’s operation on
an independent basis.
On the biking site visordown.com (17 December), Christopher
Dodd took note of speculation that the expansion of Honda’s
100%-owned subsidiary had put strain on the Honda-Hero
partnership in recent years. Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India
has an estimated 13% share of sales in India, the world’s #2
market for the two-wheelers.
Dorothy Fabian, Features Editor (USA)