Hourly workers at the Flex-N-Gate Corp. plant in Shelby Township, Mich., voted Dec. 12 to join the United Auto Workers union.
The UAW welcomed 309 workers into its membership ranks, the union said in an email to Crain's Detroit Business, as it continues to organize more Flex-N-Gate plants across the U.S.
The UAW has been working for nearly a decade to organize U.S. Flex-N-Gate plants. In 2012, UAW and labor supporters held protests outside the National Football League's rookie draft in New York, directed at Shahid Khan, who owns the Urbana, Ill.-based auto supplier and the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The union has long accused Flex-N-Gate of paying “unlivable” hourly wages as low as $10 an hour and creating unsafe working conditions.
Flex-N-Gate supplies plastic and metal bumpers, exterior trim, lighting and chassis assemblies, among other auto products. It had 2017 estimated injection molding sales of $315 million, according to Plastics News' most recent ranking.