Starting Wednesday night, about 1,500 Fuyao workers will vote in a National Labor Relations Board-overseen election on whether to form a collective bargaining unit represented by the UAW.
On Monday, Fuyao leaders cited a widely reported FBI probe into financial matters linking the UAW and automakers in Detroit as a reason to vote against union representation in Moraine.
RELATED: Turner expresses 'deep concern' about Fuyao-UAW vote
The FBI is investigating “alleged financial crimes by United Auto Workers and auto executives,” and that probe “has extended to General Motors and Ford, which join Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in a growing scandal that focuses on stolen training funds,” USA Today reported last week.
The investigation concerns the use of funds for training centers jointly operated by the UAW and the companies. Criminal charges have been filed against two Fiat Chrysler officials and three UAW officials in the matter.
“Union corruption is one of many reasons workers no longer want unions and it helps explain why organized labor continues moving down the path of its decades-long decline,” Jeff Daochuan Liu, president of Fuyao Glass America, said in a statement Monday afternoon.
RELATED: Some ballots already ID'ed for challenge in Fuyao-UAW vote
“Based upon the extensive evidence of corruption the FBI has uncovered, we urge (Fuyao) associates not to have anything to do with, and strongly reject the UAW, in this week’s election,” Liu added.
In response, a UAW spokeswoman referred to a letter from UAW President Dennis Williams, released last summer.
“The current UAW leadership had absolutely no knowledge of the alleged fraudulent activities detailed by this indictment until they were brought to our attention by the government,” Williams said in the letter.
Meanwhile, the Ohio Democratic Party accused Dayton's congressman of "spreading innuendo" about the UAW.
The Ohio Democratic Party responded to U.S. Rep. Mike Turner’s statement last week, when Turner, R-Dayton, challenged the United Auto Workers and blamed a “bad deal” between the UAW and General Motors for the 2008 closure of the GM-Moraine SUV assembly plant.
Fuyao operates in that same plant today, although it has been drastically reconfigured physically, and many of the workers there are former GM or Delphi employees.
“For all his claims about growing up in a ‘union household,’ Mike Turner doesn’t seem to have learned any lessons from that experience,” Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper said in his party’s statement.
RELATED: Union vote set for Fuyao Glass America workers
“By publicly opposing organizing efforts at the Fuyao plant, Congressman Turner is trying to silence workers, and even worse, he’s spreading innuendo and rumors to influence the vote. The voters of Ohio’s 10th Congressional District deserve a representative who will fight for them, not big corporations,” Pepper added.
In response, Turner said in an email from his office: “This is not a partisan issue, it is a factual issue. The UAW played a role in the closing of this plant. Fuyao employees have the right to decide this issue; but I think they should take this into consideration.”
Neither GM nor the UAW have ever publicly acknowledged a behind-the-scenes deal to close the GM-Moraine plant in December 2008. A UAW regional director last week denied Turner’s charge, and the president of the IUE-CWA declined to comment.
At the time of the GM-Moraine plant’s closure, workers there were represented by the IUE-CWA, the only GM plant to be so represented.
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