Union reps hope to court employees at Transpark plant
Published 10:00 am Thursday, November 6, 2014
A Tennessee union filed a petition to court employees of a Bowling Green company.
United Auto Workers Local 1413 in Lebanon, Tenn., filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board on Oct. 22 to formally court employees of Bowling Green Metalforming – A Magna Company.
The purpose of the petition is designated by a check mark next to a box on the petition that says, “Certification of representative – A substantial number of employees wish to be represented for purposes of collective bargaining by Petitioner and Petitioner desires to be certified as representative of the employees.”
Bob Clemons, human resource department manager at Bowling Green Metalforming, is listed on the petition as the employer representative. He did not return calls for comment.
Brad Bingham is listed on the petition as national organizer of UAW Local 1413 – more than an hour away from Bowling Green – and declined to comment. Bingham referred all questions to the national UAW headquarters
in Detroit. No one at the UAW headquarters returned calls for comment.
Tracy Fuerst, director of corporate communications and media relations at Magna International in Troy, Mich., did not return a call for comment.
The last time a union filed a petition at Bowling Green Metalforming was in 2008. UAW Local 2164 filed a petition, but it was withdrawn before an election was held, according to JoVonne Lane, public affairs representative with the National Labor Relations Board.
A petition is valid as long as it’s a pending case, Lane said.
Without information from the UAW, it is unknown when the union would be allowed to approach employees and vote.
Bowling Green Metalforming is in the Kentucky Transpark.
Magna is a global automotive supplier with 317 manufacturing operations and 83 product development, engineering and sales centers in 29 countries with more than 130,000 employees, according to magna.com. Magna International is headquartered in Aurora, Ontario, Canada.
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