Will Volvo become another front in S.C.’s fight against unions?

Of the questions yet unanswered about the Volvo plant that will be built in Berkeley County, one of the most interesting is how Volvo will approach the issue of the plant’s potential unionization.

The answer will depend on how Volvo management views South Carolina workers, the importance the United Auto Workers puts on targeting the plant, and important strains in the history of the state and of the auto industry.

For now, Volvo isn’t publicly addressing the issue, deferring any substantive discussion at least until a “media day” May 28.

“At the end of the day, that will be a decision the workers have to make,” Volvo spokesman Jim Nichols said of the 2,000 to 4,000 workers envisioned at the plant. “Volvo has facilities in all parts of the world, and all sorts of workforce relationships. ... Our pay and benefits are very competitive with the rest of the industry.”

Volvo hasn’t said the state’s anti-unionism played a role in its selection for the plant. Georgia, the other finalist, is a right-to-work state as well.

Given South Carolina’s workplace heritage, Gov. Nikki Haley and other state officials want Volvo to be nonunionized.

The state’s anti-unionism played a role in the state’s success as a manufacturing center, including Boeing’s continuing expansion of its North Charleston airplane-making plant. Boeing operations in its home state of Washington are heavily unionized – and are higher cost.

While owned by China-based Zhejiang Geely Holdings, Volvo Cars is managed largely by Europeans, and their perspectives are likely to count most as the company decides on its organized-labor stance here. In that regard, they are likely to take a close look at the U.S. experience of fellow Europe-based automakers, Volkswagen AG and BMW.

BMW has operated a plant in South Carolina’s Upstate for almost 20 years. The plant is nonunionized. In fact, a vote on unionization never has been held.

Volkswagen, on the other hand, opened a plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., in 2011. The United Auto Workers lost a close organizing vote at the plant early last year after Tennessee politicians rattled some workers with vows to withhold financial incentives for future expansion of the plant unionized.

Since then, however, VW has granted both union representatives as well as an anti-union group the right to meet regularly with company management about issues in the plant. UAW officials are said to think they’re close to the point where they could win a second organizing vote.

Swedish trade unions are powerful at Volvo and throughout that country’s industrial economy. So are Volvo executives expecting to apply a similar model of workplace management in South Carolina that they experience in Sweden? Or could they be looking at a fresh plant in the Palmetto State as a chance to seize an advantage in cost and flexibility by remaining union-free?

This story was originally published May 13, 2015 at 10:27 PM with the headline "Will Volvo become another front in S.C.’s fight against unions?."