Support New Jersey ‘Supervisors’ Union

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Workers at the Hishi Plastics factory in Lincoln Park, New Jersey, have waged a five-year organizing and bargaining battle with the company. Ninety percent of the plant’s 50 workers voted to join the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE) in 2003, but their campaign was tied up by legal challenges from the employer, who claimed that some of the employees were supervisors.

The vote was suspended for four years while the NLRB decided the Kentucky River case, which established an expanded definition of supervisory work and denied many workers bargaining rights. Nevertheless, the National Labor Relations Board counted the ballots last January and granted collective bargaining with the UE to Hishi workers.

Hishi Plastics is owned by a Japanese company, Mitsubishi Chemical Holding, a $20 billion global enterprise. Though the company in 2000 signed the UN Global Compact, a pledge to uphold workers’ rights to collective bargaining, Mitsubishi is now stalling UE Local 404’s efforts to negotiate its first contract.

The local has received support from fellow UE members in Local 150, who work at another Mitsubishi subsidiary. They picketed outside the Mitsubishi corporate offices in Charlotte, North Carolina, and sent letters to the corporate leadership.

Show solidarity with a new union and pressure Mitsubishi CEO Yoshimitsu Kobayashi to negotiate in good faith with Local 404. Go here to send letters to the company.