Editor’s Note: The other day at the Exxon station across from Nissan, I caught myself staring and reminiscing at the plant where I worked for eight years. Standing there with the gas pump in my hand, a thought struck me:
What if Nissan had never chosen our small town?
Where would I be today? Where would any of us be?
Nissan has been a true blessing to our community. The plant—and the suppliers and businesses that followed—lifted countless families out of poverty, mine included.
I was just a kid working at the Omni Hut Restaurant when Nissan announced its $300 million investment in Smyrna. Working as a busboy at 13 years of age I recall overhearing customers and Major and Sally Walls all talk with excitement of the big news of Nissan locating in Smyrna. Yes, there was also anxiety over what this massive Japanese company would mean for our small town. Major James Walls, who owned the restaurant and lived next door to us, often gave me rides to work, and his place quickly became a regular stop for Nissan’s Japanese executives, who talked business over dinner. Ironically, Major Walls had been stationed at Pearl Harbor during World War II, yet I never once heard him speak with bitterness toward the Japanese. The Omni Hut’s theme said it all: “Created in a million miles of travel.”
Recently, I had lunch with Consul-General Watanabe
Rep. Mike Sparks, Japan Consul-General Watanabe and staff
of Japan. Sitting across from him, I couldn’t help but think about that kid at the Omni Hut—how far we’ve all come, and how intertwined our communities have become.
As we were having lunch, I looked up and noticed a picture of the Smyrna Train Depot on the wall, a gift from Smyrna Mayor Mary Esther Reed. It was a surreal moment, reflecting on my days as a young man on the Nissan assembly line, praying for the Good Lord to lead me out so I could follow my own dreams. Nissan was good to me, even though the work was physically exhausting, and now I watch many of my coworkers retire and think about how that company helped lift up so many families since I hired in back in 1992. Before I left I shared with the Consul-General that the story of Nissan and Smyrna should be told in a documentary.
Feel free to email me your thoughts at MikeSparksTn@gmail.com.
SMYRNA, Tenn. (UPI) — Chanting “Go home Jap” and calling Gov. Lamar Alexander a scab, about 1,500 jeering union members Tuesday disrupted ground-breaking for Nissan Motor Co’s $3OO million Datsun truck assembly plant, scheduled to begin production here in 1983.
About 500 of the placardwaving workers pushed their way into a red and green striped tent where Alexander joined company officials from Japan and local dignitaries for the dedication.
Another 1,000 milled around outside.
Sporting a Stetson hat, Alexander and Nissan U.S. President Marvin Runyon attempted to break ground with a snowplow attached to a Datsun truck following a series of speeches but were only able to drive a few feet because labor members were packed 10-deep around the truck.
C.W. “Sonny” Russell, president of the Nashville Building and Construction Trades Council, organized the protest. Russell said he was fearful nonunion labor would be used to build the mammoth facllity.
The plant represents the largest single investment ever by a Japanese company in the United States. It will produce 120,000 light trucks per year in a highly automated factory that will have 69 acres under one roof and employ 2,200 people with an estimated annual payroll of $4O million.
The construction contract was awarded Jan. 27 to Daniel Construction of Greenville, S.C., which the union and non-union tabor. Union members began arriving at the 850-acre site at daybreak, and an estimated 1,500 of them were on hand when the dedication ceremonies began. Alexander ordered in an undetermined number of Tennessee state troopers to help local authorities preserve order. Carrying signs bearing such slogans as, “The Union Is Ready, Is Nissan” and “Is Our Governor Oriental?” the union members punctuated the speeches of Nissan’s Japanese officials with taunts of “Go home rats” and “Go home Jap.”
Alexander departed from his prepared remarks to reprimand the demonstrators for their “rude” treatment of the Japanese visitors. “If I didn’t think that the rude treatment that a handful of people has given to Nissan here represents less than one-half of 1 percent of the people in Tennessee, then I would have suggested they go on to Georgia,” the governor said.
As Alexander joined Runyon in attempts to reach the truck for the groundbreaking ceremonies, the jeering union members yelled, “You’re a scab.” The labor demonstration created a massive traffic jam with traffic backed up half a mile from the tent. In the middle of the protest as a cheerful—in Japanese — from Scout troop. The girl scouts carried a sign “Welcome to Smyrna Girl Scout Troop 932″
