Electrical Workers Union Wins Delco Election by 1 Vote

By a margin of a single vote, the electronic workers union has won the right to represent the 300 hourly workers at General Motors Corp.’s Delco Remy battery plant in Anaheim.

The 149-148 vote was announced last week after the National Labor Relations Board counted nine disputed ballots left over from a Dec. 9 organizing election. Going into Monday’s count, the International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers held a six-vote lead.

The union’s narrow victory after an eight-month organizing drive ends the Anaheim facility’s reign as the only non-union General Motors automotive components factory in the nation.

There is a seven-day waiting period before the final vote can be certified, but union officials said they have no reason to think that General Motors will challenge the results.

Indeed, the company said in a prepared statement that it “anticipates the relationship with the IUE (union) to grow and to be compatible” with the company’s objectives. About 40 management and supervisory employees will not be represented by the union.

Ed Warshauser, organizing director for the union’s West Coast region, said the Delco Remy employees represent the largest single group of workers to unionize in Orange County and the southern and central sections of Los Angeles County in the past year.

The Delco Remy plant was built in 1954 and had never before been unionized. Warshauser said that, while there had been earlier organizing attempts at the plant, “nothing had been done in the last 10 years.”