Brian Lyman

Montgomery Advertiser

Workers at a Wilcox County plant highlighted by Gov. Robert Bentley during his re-election campaign voted to unionize earlier this month, despite the governor's objections.

The outcome was as close as it could be. According to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees union elections, 75 people at the GD Copper USA plant in Pine Hill voted to join the United Steelworkers on Nov. 7, while 74 voted against.

Objections to the vote were filed with the NLRB on Friday afternoon, which could trigger a hearing on the election. The nature of the objections was not immediately clear Friday. The initial approval came despite pushback from Bentley, who sent a letter to employees before the vote urging them to reject the union.

Daniel Flippo, district director for the United Steelworkers, which represents 18,000 workers in Alabama, said Friday the employees seeking a union were concerned about health and safety issues, as well as wages and benefits.

"They really just want a say in their working conditions," he said. "They really just want a seat at the table and have a part in (determining) the working conditions."

The union has factories organized in the area, and Flippo said locals from those plants helped with the organizational efforts. The GD Copper plant officially opened in May; Flippo said Golden Dragon workers contacted the union about an organizational drive in the spring, prior to the official opening.

A woman who answered the phone in the office of GD Copper USA President Roger Zhang said Friday the company had no comment on the vote. Matthew Crawford, an Atlanta attorney who represented the firm in the election, said Friday afternoon he was not authorized to speak about it.

GD Copper is the U.S. affiliate of Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group, a Chinese firm that claimed $5.5 billion in sales in 2013. The company says it has invested $100 million in the plant, which will manufacture precision copper parts for air conditioners, appliances and other products.

Bentley has used Golden Dragon as a prime example of his efforts to bring jobs to the state, particularly into economically depressed areas such as Wilcox County, one of the poorest counties in the nation. The governor announced the arrival of the company to major fanfare in March 2011 and participated in opening ceremonies for the plant earlier this year. Bentley also featured the company in at least one of his re-election ads.

According to an al.com report earlier this year, state officials extended up to $160 million in capital income tax credits to the company over the next 20 years. Officials also gave the company $42.1 million in incentives, tax abatements, infrastructure improvements, worker training and site preparation. Company executives have said jobs at the plant would pay workers salaries up to the low $40,000s. According to the U.S. Census, the median household income in Wilcox County between 2008 and 2012 was $24,212 a year.

Gov. urged 'no' vote

In a letter dated Nov. 5, Bentley urged the employees to vote against the union, writing that a vote for a union "could have a possible negative impact on your community by discouraging other companies from locating there."

The governor wrote that he believed Golden Dragon was "firmly committed" to competitive wage and benefit packages.

"Let's give GD Copper a chance to respond and address your concerns in an open way when they arise," Bentley wrote. "This is only fair, especially when the company has made such an investment in you and your community."

Jennifer Ardis, a spokeswoman for Bentley, said the governor was "disappointed" in the vote but added that "Alabama is a right-to-work state, and the governor always respects the right of people to vote." Greg Canfield, Alabama's secretary of commerce, said in a written statement Friday he also was "disappointed" by the results, adding that he was hopeful "this issue won't serve to discourage future investment and job creation at a facility located in one of Alabama's poorest areas."

Flippo, in turn, was critical of Bentley's letter, which he said circulated among Golden Dragon workers the day before the vote.

"I always thought Gov. Bentley was meant to represent all the people in the state," he said. "For him to insert himself into the union election against the workers — it's sad that a governor of this state or any state would try to have a say in the workplace," he said.

The plant employs roughly 150 people. Officials have said they expect the number to grow to 300 by the end of 2015, and possibly reach 500 employees.

In his State of the State speech last January, Bentley — who framed the address around Wilcox County's economic woes — cited the plant as an example of a recruiting success.

"This is our role, to create an environment where there is an opportunity for people to get a good job, to train and get the skills they need, to get a good education at an early age and to continually encourage people to break free of the bondage of dependency, to stand on their own two feet, and we do this by giving them an opportunity for and the satisfaction of having a job," Bentley's speech concluded.

In an interview with the Advertiser last month, the governor credited the plant with helping drive Wilcox County's unemployment level down from a Great Depression-era 24 percent in 2009 to an improved — if still high — 13.7 percent today.

Creating copper tubing is a delicate and complicated process, said Flippo, who previously worked with workers at a copper tube plant in Mississippi. Those working on the copper, he said, can expose themselves to risk.

"You have furnaces that melt it down, and make the molten copper that goes into moulds and make ingots," he said. "There are different machines that take the different copper and form the tubing, running at high speeds. There's a lot of chemicals used, but also in the cleaning making the tubing, it's hot."

If the union is ultimately approved, workers at the plant will form a negotiating committee and hammer out a collective bargaining agreement with the plant's owners, a process that could take up to a year.

"We want that facility to grow and provide jobs for the members," Flippo said.

Southern governors have generally fought unionization in manufacturing plants. Tennessee Gov. Bill Halsam last year opposed a unionization drive at a Volkswagen plant, a drive the company itself did not oppose. The vote failed, but the company announced last week that it would allow any group that represented at least 15 percent of the workforce to have a voice in labor decisions.

Due in part to its industrial heritage, Alabama has traditionally had the highest rate of unionization in the South. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 203,000 Alabamians, or 10.7 percent of the workforce, belonged to a union in 2013. 222,000 workers — 11.7 percent of the work force — were represented by a union.