Thomas Built manufactures buses and is owned by Freightliner, which is a subsidiary of DaimlerChrysler. Freightliner has nine plants in North America. Thomas Built, one of three Freightliner plants that are not unionized, employs 1,600 workers.

The March 16 action was called by the state AFL-CIO and the UAW in response to attacks on the union organizing campaign by the High Point Chamber of Commerce and Piedmont Associated Industries. These bosses’ associations made public appeals to keep High Point a "union-free," business-friendly place.

Workers from many unions attended the solidarity rally. Presentations included comments from representatives of the Steelworkers; Machinists; Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE); Farmer Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC); Communication Workers of America; postal workers union; government employees union; United Firefighters Local 947; Sheetmetal workers Local 5; and the tobacco workers.

Several Thomas Built workers expressed appreciation for the big show of support and the ongoing help from the newly-organized UAW workers at Freightliner. A number of these workers said their fight for the union is about respect, about the right to have a voice in their workplace. Two workers have been fired but won their jobs back during the organizing drive so far.

"It’s pitiful, the working conditions," said Jason Schultz, 29, a welder at Thomas Built "The way we’re treated [by the company]. They treat certain people like dogs. They don’t give you respect. We work with broken tools. Welding leads with cuts in the line. The roof leaks water. There’s water all over where we’re welding and they tell us to keep working. The welders wear respirators, but there’s very little ventilation in the plant. The fumes from the welding go all through the plant."

The company has agreed to take a "neutral" stance toward the union organizing drive, Schultz said, "but we know the company is behind the anti-union propaganda appearing in the plant. In the past, almost no supervisors ate in the lunch room. Now two supervisors are always in there when we’re in there. But we still discuss the union. When our coworkers who are against the union raise something, we answer them and if we don’t know, we tell them, and then we call the union and find out the answer for them."

The January Freightliner victory for 3,100 workers was the largest union organizing drive in the Carolinas since 5,100 textile workers at six Pillowtex mills won a 25-year battle for the right to union recognition in 1999. While union representation continues to decline in the Carolinas--largely due to layoffs and companies going under--the increasingly brutal working conditions drive workers to seek the strength of union organization.

On April 16, some 600 workers at Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp. in south Charlotte, North Carolina, will vote on union recognition. Seimens has laid off 400 workers at this turbine plant since September. This will be the fourth vote at this plant, the last one having taken place in 1988.

Connie Allen is a member of UNITE Local 1501. Seth Galinsky, a member of UNITE Local 1506, contributed to this article. Both work at Pillowtex mills in Kannapolis and Concord, North Carolina.  
 
 
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