Why did Nissan worker vote no to a union?

Labor Notes - There's no sugar-coating a loss this dramatic: 2,244-1,307 against the United Auto Workers, after a 12-year campaign to organize the mile-long Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi.

Despite multiple attempts, the UAW has yet to win a plant-wide vote at a foreign-owned automaker in the South.

The August 4 loss can be laid to three factors: Nissan's fierce anti-union campaign, the union's failure to build a strong organizing committee that acted like a union on the shop floor, and Nissan workers' reluctance to rock the boat and risk losing a job that pays far higher than they could expect to make almost anywhere else.

UAW strategists felt that the demographics were in their favor, since 80 percent of the Nissan workforce is Black. Data shows that Black workers are more likely to vote for a union than are their white counterparts.

But they also had to contend with the fact that Nissan brought well-paid jobs to an area with very few. Even though Nissan workers make less than workers at the Big Three automakers, they still take home some of the highest blue-collar wages in the state.