He's probably thinking of the JAW Japanese auto workers union or the internal-ish toyota union TMWUI or whatever its called in English. Lets think about it, the Japanese unions bargain with a healthier company therefore get a better deal than the UAW gets from the failing companies in Detroit, and Japanese management as a class is superior to American management as a class (just look at the financials?), therefore they keep the unions out in their transplant plants by offering a deal roughly as good as the union deals in Japan. The transplant workers know they'll get a better deal by piggy backing on the JAW workers offer and the transplant management knows keeping the workers slightly better off than they could possibly get under the UAW will keep a lot of hassle out of the plant. So pretty much everyone wins except the JAW and Toyota MotorWorkers Union (or whatever they're called) because everyone in the USA is piggy backing on their bargaining skills.

So there's two forbidden topics that can't be discussed in contemporary American culture which make it really weird when Americans try to talk about the topic, one that management is simply superior at Toyota (It is a much more successful company... wonder why? Hint its not the nuclear radiation, and management holds final responsibility always) and secondly the UAW is failing their members because the JAW can get a better deal (admittedly its easier to get a better deal when the company is successful, not failing). If you censor the forbidden topics from the discussion in the mass media, you get really weird, illogical stories and discussion.

One really weird thing you see is intentionally mixing apples and oranges to get a political outcome. So the UAW has bargained away salaries such that starting is now like $14/hr at a UAW plant, you can do better at a Toyota transplant which averages in the upper 20s. However if you carefully compare faked up total compensation of $73/hr counting all benefits and retiree amortized expenses and taxes and everything, then it looks like Toyota employees are only getting about 1/3 the pay of a UAW employee. Of course the takehome pay on a paycheck for a new Toyota employee is WAY higher than the takehome pay of a new UAW employee and will remain at that ratio, more or less, for the rest of that noobs career (or until GM finally goes out of business or gets bought out)

Here is an article[1] about how the senators and politicians in Tennessee try to avert installing a German-style Betriebsrat (workers' representation) in their Chattanooga plant. The plan is to have it with UAW.

Have this lovely quote from a manager, and not a politican: "In puncto Mitbestimmung muss klar sein: Demokratie endet für uns nicht an Werkszäunen." (Concerning worker's participation it is clear: for us, democracy does not end at factory gates [fences].)

[1]: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/streit-ueber-vw-betrie...

Sorry that it's in German...

the google translation of that quote is pretty funny:

"Democracy does not end for us to plant fences"

I think it's important to consider the rights of the owner as well. If I am a captain on a fishing boat, and I built/paid for the boat, I can then hire fisherman to work on my boat. There are more fishermen than captains, if there is a disagreement between the fishermen and the captain regarding where they should be fishing and it was up to a vote, the fishermen would win.

What incentive does the captain have to invest in his own boat if he has no control over where it goes or how it is run?

Why don't the fisherman go build their own boat if they don't like where the captain is fishing?

The majority in this example microdemocracy is effectively stealing the boat from the owner by using the force of the 'state' to reallocate his resources to themselves.

I beg your pardon? VW is trying to establish a workers' representation in their plant, with politicians actively working against it because they fear that this will, over time, drive up the general level of income, which, in turn, will lead to other car manufacturers moving to other states.

This has little to do with workers taking over from the owner, and everything with wages kept artificially low in order to attract international companies simply because of these artifically low wages.

Ya that's messed up. An excellent example of unnecessary govt meddling.