2015/07/21 – 

Recently, Nissan announced a half-million-dollar donation to the Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. While on its face, Nissan’s donation is a noble act, it does not mean Nissan is a champion of civil rights. It cannot excuse Nissan’s ongoing attack on the civil rights of its own workforce.

“This project seeks to tell the full story of Mississippi’s past while also magnifying hopes for the future,” said Jeffrey Webster, director of diversity and inclusion for Nissan North America. The truth is that Nissan is writing a new chapter in our state’s painful civil rights history and is stripping hope from the future of many Mississippi workers and their families.

Workers at Nissan’s Canton plant have been organizing a union to address the company’s health and safety problems and its abuse of temporary agency workers. Nissan workers hope that if they can have a voice with a union, they can make Nissan a safer and fairer place to work.

However, as workers have been organizing, Nissan has responded with threats that the plant will close if workers vote in a union. A Nissan vice president told workers they cannot be “pro-Nissan and pro-union.” Nissan management has harassed targeted, and terminated union supporters, both African American and white workers.

The right to organize a union is a human right recognized by the International Labor Organization and the United Nations Global Compact. It is a right Nissan respects in Japan, France, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Spain and South Africa, where it also maintains production facilities. It is the right that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was defending in Memphis when he was slain.

Nissan workers, with the backing of civil rights organizations, clergy and students, refuse to forfeit their rights. They have been calling on Nissan to stop its intimidation campaign. They are drawing inspiration from Mississippi’s civil rights history and have adopted the slogan, “Tell Nissan: Labor Rights are Civil Rights.” They have enlisted support from the NAACP and more than 100 clergy across the state.

Nissan said this about its museum donation: “This contribution continues Nissan’s commitment to diversity, education and service in our community.” We must firmly disagree. Respect for civil rights is not something that can be achieved through monetary donations alone. Nissan cannot placate civil rights organizations by throwing money toward our programs. Our support cannot be bought. Rather, if Nissan wants to be for civil rights, it must start at home, at its facility in Canton.

Nissan must answer to the poor treatment of its workers in Canton. Nearly half of the Nissan Canton workforce has been hired as temporary labor, earning much lower wages and fewer benefits than the regular workers doing the same jobs. Moreover, of the temp workers, nearly all are African-American. This modern discrimination is unacceptable.

Nissan must honor the legacy of King and Evers and Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman, by respecting the civil rights of the Mississippians it employs. To attack unions and the right to organize is to attack the civil rights movement and those who struggled for equality at the ballot box. We in the civil rights movement call on Nissan to allow workers the chance to decide about unions without threats or intimidation. Please, Nissan do not stand in obstruction to Dr. King’s dream, but instead join us in trying to achieve it.

Frank Figgers, of the Mississippi NAACP, serves as co-chair of the Mississippi Alliance for Fairness at Nissan (MAFFAN) and is a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement.

Source: Frank Figgers

The Clarion-Ledgar