The free event is like a country fair, with rides, door prizes and food, Gore said. Even in the financially troubled years, they never cut employees or benefits, Gore said. They even kept family day. And every year, employees received raises, Gore said. But there are no free lunches at Nissan, Gore said.
Employees work hard and they earn every penny they make.
The job pays well, but you earn it. Nissan employees do work harder than anyone else in town, agreed Bob Doochin, president of American Paper and Twine Co. in Nashville. Doochin's company supplies paper floor-mat covers for the vehicles that roll off the Smyrna assembly line. The only controversy the Smyrna plant ever had involved the union, said James Rubenstein, a professor at Ohio's Miami University who has studied the auto industry. A vote was taken by the employees on whether to join the auto union, Rubenstein said.