UAW Says Nissan Surveils Workers at Plant Where Union Failed

(Bloomberg) -- The United Auto Workers accused Nissan Motor Co. of illegally tracking and rating employees by their union sentiments for years at a Mississippi assembly plant where workers voted down representation last month.

In an amended complaint filed Sept. 19 with the National Labor Relations Board, the union alleges the automaker “continues to maintain an employee surveillance, data collection and rating system that records employee union activity and rates workers according to their perceived support for or opposition to the UAW.”

In the complaint, which Bloomberg News obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, the UAW asks the NLRB to subpoena the automaker and investigate its claims.

Brian Brockman, a spokesman for the automaker, said filing charges like these with the NLRB “is a common tactic in an organizing campaign.”

“Nissan abides by all U.S. labor laws and respects the employees' right to choose if and how they wish to be represented,” he said in an email. “This is another attempt by the UAW to ignore the voices of Nissan employees who chose to reject representation by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.”

The allegations follow an NLRB-supervised election held Aug. 3 and 4, where 2,244 employees at the plant voted against joining the union and 1,307 cast ballots in favor. The UAW blamed the result on intimidation, which it has alleged to the NLRB included threatening to close the plant, questioning employees and infringing on the union's access to voters.

The UAW submitted a partially redacted document to the NLRB that it said is evidence of Nissan's rating system. The union said the document lists names and employee numbers along with comments such as “has talked with solicitors at the gate before a shift” and “has been seen hanging with pro-union technicians.”

Nissan's plant in Canton, Mississippi, builds Altima sedans, Titan and Frontier pickups, Murano sport utility vehicles and NV commercial vans.

To contact the reporter on this story: Josh Eidelson in Washington at jeidelson@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Craig Trudell at ctrudell1@bloomberg.net, Anne Riley Moffat