By Blair Dedrick, New Era Staff Writer

Recruiters from United Auto Workers are in Hopkinsville this week encouraging workers at Dana Corp. to join the union, officials with both the Hopkinsville Industrial Foundation and the Pennyrile Central Labor Union said today.

Following a commitment of neutrality toward unions from Dana management as part of the company’s recovery from bankruptcy, UAW is apparently attempting to unionize Dana’s non-union plants.

“At one time, the (Hopkinsville) plant was the number one plant in the world for Dana,” said John Crenshaw, president of the board of the Hopkinsville Industrial Foundation. “We really weren’t aware until it got to disaster point. Now, we’re trying to get the message out telling people to think about it before they sign a card.”

The foundation has placed two large advertisements in the Kentucky New Era, both labeled “Open Letter to Dana Employees,” that encourage employees to research the benefits and disadvantages to unionizing. The second letter, published Tuesday, told employees to think about the bigger picture of Hopkinsville and the community’s ability to recruit other industry.

“It really is big, and that’s the part we’re asking people to understand,” Crenshaw said. “We’re going to have people come in and say, ‘Oh, you have a UAW plant with 600 people, well, see you.’”

Crenshaw told the story of Logan Aluminum, located in Logan County. The same day company officials were in town to look at a site, the Phelps Dodge plant, which has since closed, was on strike, he said.

“They never came back,” he said. “Now it’s Logan Aluminum, not Christian.”

The Hopkinsville Industrial Foundation and the city-county Economic Development Council have been successful recruiting industry to the community, Crenshaw said.

“What if we hadn’t been successful?” he asked. “All the industry that has come since (the 1980s) has come with this philosophy. I feel sorry for these people, but getting UAW on your side is not going to help you, not in Hopkinsville.”

Dana’s pledge of neutrality to the UAW meant that the union promised no strikes for three years and locked in the company’s labor costs.

“We didn’t need UAW to say that here in Hopkinsville, we just need the workers saying it,” Crenshaw said. “I want this community to discuss this very intelligently and to think about the community as a whole not just one job.”

He said if an employee is unhappy at work today, he or she can “decide with their feet” and find another job.

“If they go union, they may not have that opportunity,” he said. “If UAW comes to town, it’s going to take Hopkinsville off the list for a lot of companies.”

Betty Robertson, board member of the Pennyrile Central Labor Council, said the argument that industry will be harder to recruit is invalid, adding that the hundreds of manufacturing jobs lost this year were not union jobs.

Robertson, who has been a member of the AFL-CIO since 1966, said that employees at Dana need to sign the cards.

“Unions are to protect the workers,” she said. “I’ve never understood officials not wanting unions because higher wages mean more payroll taxes and that would help everyone.”

As for strikes, Robertson said the last one she remembers was in the 1980s.

“We just do our jobs and leave everyone alone,” she said.

Crenshaw said that the Dana plant located in Hopkinsville in the first place because of the non-union atmosphere.

Only two manufacturing plants are unionized locally, Ebonite and Emhart Fastening, but other groups, such as letter carriers, are, Robertson said. About 3,000 residents of the city are unionized at their place of work, which could be outside of the city, she said.

Crenshaw said he doesn’t want the issue to become a battle.

“It’s not just your job, it’s everybody’s job,” he said. “The UAW is not worried about Hoptown, it’s a national issue for them.”

Joe Artiles from the Nashville regional office for the National Board of Labor Relations said the union has to get a majority of the workers in a plant to sign the union cards, proclaiming publicly that they want to unionize. If the employer recognizes the union based on the card check, it notifies the NBLR and posts the recognition at the plant.

At that point, employees who do not want a union have 45 days to get 30 percent of their co-workers to sign a petition that would force a secret ballot election to take place.

Blair Dedrick can be reached at 887-3240 or bdedrick@kentuckynewera.com.