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- <text id=89TT2016>
- <title>
- Aug. 07, 1989: Business Notes:Automakers
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Aug. 07, 1989 Diane Sawyer:Is She Worth It?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 41
- Business Notes
- AUTOMAKERS
- Unions Need Not Apply
- </hdr><body>
- <p> The 1980s has not been kind to the United Auto Workers
- union. Since the decade's beginning, membership has declined
- more than 40%, to 996,000. Last week the U.A.W. suffered another
- setback when it was trounced in an election at Nissan Motor
- Manufacturing in Smyrna, Tenn. By a tally of 1,622 to 711,
- workers at the Japanese-owned plant voted to keep the U.A.W.
- out.
- </p>
- <p> The union had aggressively campaigned for the past 17
- months to organize the workers at the plant. The primary issue
- was safety. Pro-union employees accused Nissan of a "brutal"
- assembly-line speedup that allegedly caused injury and excessive
- fatigue among workers. While Nissan heatedly contested the
- speedup charges, its most effective defense may have been the
- plant's location in heavily anti-union territory. Although
- hourly wages at Nissan are $1 or so less than those at Ford,
- Chrysler and General Motors, the company pays substantially more
- than most other companies in Tennessee.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-