Workers at Nissan's manufacturing plant in Canton, Miss. are voting today on whether to join the United Auto Workers, amid complaints from some workers about safety concerns, retirement funding, and management favoritism of white workers over the plant's African American majority.
- Even as pro-worker causes like the Fight for $15 have won successive victories in recent years raising minimum wages and raising awareness of income inequality, unions have continued to lose ground.
- This is occurring even as economists are increasingly pointing to the decline of unions and other factors like globalization as reasons for declining worker bargaining power and slow wage growth.
- Why it matters: The Canton vote will serve as an indicator as to whether labor-movement successes in other areas will translate victories on the unionization front.