Non-Majority Auto Union in North Carolina Fights to Soften the Blow of Layoffs

Tiffany Ten Eyck
January 22, 2010

Workers at Cummins Engine in North Carolina, mostly African-American, got no recall rights when they were laid off last March, unlike the mostly white workers at the company’s plant in New York.

Most union workers laid off in the economic crisis had recall rights—a promise they’d get called back before their employer could hire new workers along with the ability to maintain seniority. But millions of workers simply lost their jobs. That’s what happened to nearly 200 workers at the Cummins engine plant in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, in March last year. . . .

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