Distributing the music and the movies

When Sony DADC purchased Universal Music Group in Fishers, Ind., last year, the workers there went to work for yet another company.

"I've worked here for 22 years, and I can't tell you how many times we've been bought and sold," said UAW Local 761 President Cedric Wilkerson.

Thanks to the successor clause in their UAW contract, which requires the purchasing company to maintain the existing bargaining unit, jobs of workers like Wilkerson are protected if companies are sold.

"We are a warehouse and distributor for Sony Corp. disc products. When you order a music CD, a DVD or BluRay video produced by Sony, it comes here. The order department sends the order to my computer, I pull it from the shelf and get it ready for shipping," said Wilkerson, who is a general warehouseman and film order driver.

"Sometimes it's just a couple of discs, but it could be as many as 128, which is a whole skid. We even still have some vinyl records."

Universal Music Group workers have been UAW members since the early 1980s.

John Hammond