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WDET-FM 4/22/2024 11:45:40 AM: ...around the country? And how should we be interpreting the big contracts UAW members at the big 3 auto companies received now to discuss this? We have Merrick Masters with us. He is the Chair of the Department of Finance at Wayne State University and a Professor of management and adjunct professor of political science, Merrick. Thanks for joining us on the metro. Thank you for having me a pleasure to be here, so let's start here. What did you make of this vote that happened in Tennessee? And what does it mean for those organizing unions across the South? It's a significant step. A continuation of the UAW's momentum, which started with Shawn Fein's inauguration last March, was accelerated by the record contracts on the heels of the successful stand-up stripes and the launch of the campaign to organize 13 non-union companies. This is the first election that's been held under that campaign. It is a reversal of fortune, so to speak. In that UAW won this by a lopsided majority over 70% in an election that had lost several years ago at Chattanooga, and they now have pending an election at the advance, the Alabama site of Mercedes Bins with about 5000 workers. I would anticipate that they have a good chance of winning that election as well, and you know you mention this momentum around unions. People do seem to want them, according to the polling I've seen, but we're not necessarily seeing a lot of that coming to fruition. So, with the percentage of Union workers going down, how should we reconcile this information in your estimation? Well, I think you have to reconcile it by taking a look at the very small numbers that are involved, for example at Starbucks, where you've had hundreds of elections take place. Most of the units are just a handful of people, and overall you only have 8000 workers, and it's important to remember you have a work. For some, well of about a hundred-and-fifty million people, so unions are just 10% of the work for and it's going to take all years of magnitude greater in terms of organizing for them to offset the layoffs and natural turnover that occurs in the group near because of retirements and other forms of downsize, and some of that downsized it could be layoffs, which we've seen at the big 3 in recent months. Let's talk about messaging and Marketing. How many of those workers were union and how much of that ... * This copy is real time computer generated. Your keyword is highlighted, other text will vary in accuracy due to speaker dialect and audio quality issues.
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