Toyota Organizing and the United Auto Workers

The rapidly growing number of unorganized auto plants in the US South challenges the UAW as its tries to hold on to its density in the industry. Asian and European manufacturers now operate 10 assembly plants in the region employing close to 50,000 workers-all non-union.

Labor Notes presents three articles on the efforts of volunteer organizers to organize a Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky and the larger significance drives like this hold for both the UAW and other US unions.

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* Gregg Shotwell, a production worker at Delphi in Michigan, writes of his visit to volunteer organizers at the plant.

* Mike Parker, an electrician at DaimlerChrysler, writes about why the Toyota drive is critically important and about the attitudes of skilled trades workers toward the organizing drive.