News-Record.com

I never would have thought the UAW would grab a toehold in High Point, but organizers won a fair election by a convincing margin at Thomas Built Buses this week.

High Point has never been union-friendly. There have been unions in town before, but they generally didn't last long. Strikes by hosiery mill workers in the '50s and by production workers at the High Point Enterprise in the '60s failed miserably.

The city's favorable business climate traditionally depended on a compliant labor force employed by paternalistic and for the most part benevolent local mill and factory owners.

Over the years, however, most of the largest home-grown businesses were bought out by larger conglomerations -- some of which later shut them down.

Thomas Built Buses, founded in 1916, is still thriving, but it's no longer owned or managed by the Thomas family. The parent company is Freightliner, based in Portland, Ore., which in turn is owned by Germany's DaimlerChrysler.

I doubt very much that the UAW would have gotten in the door if the Thomases still owned TBB. But Freightliner and DC are largely unionized throughout their organizations and did not oppose the UAW drive here.

At the same time, Thomas workers already enjoy very good wages and benefits for this area. The real driving factors behind the union push seemed to be health and safety issues and job security.

Based on my knowledge of unions (I've never belonged to one but I learned a little when I worked for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 1983-84) is that they can have a positive influence in the field of health and safety.

I'd be a lot less confident about job security. Unions like the UAW have lost so much membership in the last couple of decades precisely because of job cutbacks. It also stands to reason that demands for higher wages and more expensive benefits put pressure on companies in highly competitive industries that sometimes cause them to downsize or seek savings through increased mechanization at the expense of employment.

Job security shouldn't be a concern at TBB in High Point because the company has just opened a new $40 million production facility and added to its workforce. That kind of investment indicates confidence in the future.

I had thought the new plant would allay some of the union fervor, which was based party on poor working conditions when the drive began more than two years ago. At that time the company's primary facility apparently was in pretty poor shape, perhaps providing some validity for worker complaints. Those worries should be alleviated with the opening of the new, state-of-the-art facility.

Another factor I thought would play against the union was politics. The UAW, like other components of the AFL-CIO, is part and parcel of the Democratic Party. A lot of TBB workers live in Randolph and Davidson counties, as well as High Point -- strong Republican territory. Maybe the UAW will play down politics locally.

Business leaders in High Point aren't pleased by the UAW success, of course. They fear it sends a signal that the city is less employer-friendly. That is a concern, but there aren't that many companies that lend themselves to unionization anymore. TBB is by far the city's largest manufacturing employer. Other large employers include High Point Regional Health System, Bank of America and the city.

But you never know. I never would have predicted a UAW victory in High Point.