Jackson Free Press

The United Auto Workers and the Mississippi NAACP are supporting efforts by some workers at the Nissan automotive plant in Canton to form a labor union. A full-blown campaign is underway with workers planning to petition the National Labor Relations Board to set a date to put the question to a vote.

Robert Shaffer, president of the Mississippi AFL-CIO, said he has gotten calls for several years from workers at the plant complaining of mandatory overtime and weekend shifts. Other workers say that Mississippi workers are paid less than at Nissan's plant in Smyrna, Tenn.

"They're saying to themselves, 'Nissan is making all these profits--where am I at in life?'" Shaffer said.

He said workers expressed interest in forming the union rather than the UAW coming to Mississippi to drum up support. Shaffer added that workers have the right to decide if they want to unionize without interference from government or Nissan officials.

"The politicians ought to stay out of it and let those people decide if they need a union or not," he said.

Derrick Johnson, president of the Mississippi State Conference NAACP, echoed Shaffer's sentiments. He said the NAACP is supporting Nissan workers' right to "negotiate fair wages for a fair day's work."

Aside from wages, Johnson said medical and child care are other points of contention that workers hope unionizing can address. He also said that workers don't know how many hours they will work from week to week. Just as Nissan holds certain contractual agreements that help it predict revenue, workers should be offered similar stability, he added.

"Mississippi is a very low wage paying state. Unfortunately, companies are profiting, and workers are not," Johnson said.