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10 December, 2001A large majority of workers at Honda's Swindon plant has supported representation by IMF-affiliate AEEU.
UNITED KINGDOM: Workers at Honda on Monday used new laws to win the biggest recognition deal of its kind. Nearly three-quarters of employees who voted in a ballot at the carmaker's Swindon plant backed representation by Britain's biggest manufacturing union, the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU).
The AEEU said 72.8 per cent of votes cast supported recognition, on a turnout of 77 per cent. The vote means the plant's 4,000 workers will gain collective bargaining rights.
The vote at Honda in Britain could have implications for Honda's subsidiaries in other parts of the world. Honda and the other big Japanese carmakers, Nissan and Toyota, have resisted efforts by the United Auto Workers union of America to gain recognition at their US plants.
In October, workers at the Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, rejected union representation by the United Auto Workers (UAW), after - according to the UAW - U.S. management "barraged workers with distorted, misleading, wrong information" about the union.
The AEEU said 72.8 per cent of votes cast supported recognition, on a turnout of 77 per cent. The vote means the plant's 4,000 workers will gain collective bargaining rights.
The vote at Honda in Britain could have implications for Honda's subsidiaries in other parts of the world. Honda and the other big Japanese carmakers, Nissan and Toyota, have resisted efforts by the United Auto Workers union of America to gain recognition at their US plants.
In October, workers at the Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, rejected union representation by the United Auto Workers (UAW), after - according to the UAW - U.S. management "barraged workers with distorted, misleading, wrong information" about the union.