Bernie Sanders and DNC chair Tom Perez attack Nissan for anti-union campaign in Mississippi
By David Weigel August 3 at 4:23 PM
Excerpt:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez offered some last-minute encouragement for a unionization effort at a Nissan plant in Canton, Miss. — a drive that is expected to end in defeat Friday after a vigorous anti-union campaign.
“Supervisors have called workers off assembly lines for one-on-one interrogations. Anti-union videos are being run on a constant loop in employee break rooms,” Sanders wrote in a column for the Guardian. “Groups of workers have been called into ’roundtable’ meetings to hear management disparage the United Auto Workers. Nissan has been saturating local TV and radio with anti-union propaganda.”
In a video statement, Perez — a former labor secretary — accused Nissan of an “outrageous campaign to intimidate its workers, threatening plant closures, pay cuts and all-out retribution against those who threat to unionize.”
“Get out of the way, Nissan,” Perez said. “Let them make a decision on their own.”
Sanders, U.S. Democrats and a cluster of progressive political organizations have spotlighted the Canton union drive all year: In March, Sanders was at the head of a march on the plant, linking the organizers’ cause to the fight for civil rights.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/08/03/bernie-sanders-and-dnc-chair-tom-perez-attack-nissan-for-anti-union-campaign-in-mississippi/
