“U.A.W. Accuses Nissan of ‘Scare Tactics’ as Workers Reject Union Bid”, 05 August 2017

… [W]orkers at a Nissan plant in Mississippi overwhelmingly rejected a bid to unionize, an election that the union quickly criticized.

Out of roughly 3,500 employees at the Canton-based plant who voted Thursday and Friday, more than 60 percent opposed the union…

The union accused the company of waging an unusually aggressive fight against the organizing effort…

The company said its employees had spoken and urged the U.A.W. to “respect and abide by their decision and cease their efforts to divide our Nissan family.”

In meetings between management and workers, and in a video featuring the plant’s top official, Nissan was more menacing, suggesting that a union would put workers’ jobs at risk.

At one point leading up to the vote, managers delivered a slide presentation warning that in the event of a strike, most employees who walked out would not be guaranteed jobs afterward. Many workers appeared to find the presentation alarming, even though strikes are rare in the industry and replacing production workers could be difficult.

A regional director of the National Labor Relations Board, prompted by a series of charges filed by the U.A.W., issued a complaint in late July accusing Nissan of illegally threatening to close the plant if workers chose to unionize, and threatening to fire workers involved in the organizing effort.

Coinciding with the vote on Friday, the union filed a round of new charges about the company’s behavior, including providing the union with faulty voter information, keeping workers who were engaged in organizing activity under surveillance and rating workers according to the extent of their union support.

A Nissan spokeswoman, Parul Bajaj, said that “employees were reminded of the significance of the election and encouraged to exercise their right to vote,” and that human resources officials were available in the back of the room to take questions.