More than 5,000 Mercedes-Benz workers in Alabama are voting this week on whether to join the United Automobile Workers Union. Supporters and opponents alike say the decision will have ramifications beyond the German automaker’s two plants near Tuscaloosa, where it produces luxury sport utility vehicles. Batteries for electric vehicles.
Conservative political leaders have portrayed the union campaign to organize Mercedes workers as an outsider attack on the local economy and way of life. Vote tallies are expected to be released by federal officials on Friday.
Six southern governors, including Republican Kay Ivey of Alabama, issued a statement last month calling unions “special interest groups seeking to come into our states and threaten our jobs and the values we live by.” Alabama recently passed legislation aimed at curbing union organizing.
The union’s victory would add to a string of victories in the South, where organized labor has traditionally been weak, and would provide momentum to the UAW’s efforts to win over workers at other non-union automakers such as Hyundai, Toyota, Honda and Tesla. It will.
A UAW loss could drastically slow union President Shawn Fain’s campaign to organize auto and battery plants across the country. The effort began after the union struck a new contract last fall that gave huge pay raises and other benefits to workers at Stellantis, the parent company of General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Chrysler, Jeep and Ram.
In Alabama, the crucible of the civil rights movement, union organizers and supporters viewed the Mercedes campaign as part of a decades-long struggle to dismantle an economic system based on the exploitation of the poor.
Bishop William Barber Jr., an activist and professor at Yale Divinity School, told organizers, workers and supporters Monday at a Montgomery church. “You’re not just fighting for the union.” “You are fighting for justice.”
UAW supporters were optimistic as workers voted at the Mercedes auto plant in Vance, Alabama, and a company-owned plant in nearby Woodstock that assembles battery packs for electric vehicles. The National Labor Relations Board is overseeing the week-long poll.
“I think we have the upper hand now,” said Sammie Ellis, a union organizer who installs wiring in Mercedes vehicles. He sits in a cluttered store office down the street from the Vance plant, where activists sit on folding chairs and plan strategy amid piles of placards with slogans like “Mercedes Workers United” and “End Alabama Discount.” I gave a speech outside.
The Alabama discount is a reference to what union activists say is the state’s main attraction to investors: low wages and compliant workers. “They’re coming to take advantage of the fact that Alabama workers live in worse conditions than workers elsewhere,” said Joe Cleveland of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in Anniston, Alabama.
“The company has a proven track record of providing competitive compensation to its team members and providing many additional benefits,” Mercedes said in a statement.
Employees who have been with Mercedes for four years can earn $34 an hour, and some employees say they appreciate the way the company treats them.
“Mercedes calls me “You’ve done a lot for me,” he said. Ms. Berry earned less than $14 an hour at her previous job, she said.
The UAW has been active in the South since workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted in April for union representation. Also that month, the union significantly increased wages for Daimler truck workers in North Carolina. The victory for Mercedes, which became a separate company from Daimler Trucks in 2021, will strengthen the union in its next campaign to organize workers at the Hyundai plant in Montgomery, about 100 miles south of Tuscaloosa.
The South Korean company produces SUVs, including Tucson and Santa Fe models, at its Montgomery plant. Union organizers are also targeting a Honda plant in Lincoln, Alabama, where the Japanese company makes SUVs and pickup trucks. But such efforts are still in their infancy.
On Monday, about 50 activists and modern workers gathered at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in Montgomery to sing union fight songs and listen to a speech by Bishop Barber.
Paraphrasing Martin Luther King Jr., Bishop Barber accused Southern political leaders of competing with one another. They fear blacks and poor whites joining together to form a voting bloc that would fundamentally change the economic structure of the country and state, he said.
Alabama’s Republican political leaders were strongly opposed to unions. After likening the UAW to a “leech,” Nathaniel Ledbetter, the Republican speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, helped pass a bill denying state funding to businesses that voluntarily recognize unions.
While the law had no direct impact on the Mercedes vote, it reflected the alarm of Republicans with close ties to corporate interests and their determination to stop union expansion. Mr. Ivey signed the bill into law on Monday.
“Unionization will clearly put jobs in our state at risk,” Ms. Ivey said in a statement to Republican lawmakers in Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
The offices of Mr. Ledbetter and Mr. Ivey did not respond to requests for comment.
The 2016 union struggle at Hyundai’s plant in Alabama failed, but activists say things have changed. “At first, people were easily frightened and intimidated by anti-union tactics,” said Küschel Riggins, who worked at the Hyundai plant for 12 years. “I’m ready this time.”
In an apparent effort to blunt the union’s appeal, Hyundai was one of several automakers to raise worker wages after the UAW boosted wages for members Ford, GM and Stellantis. According to the company, Hyundai Motor Company’s wage increase announced last November amounted to 14% compared to the previous year.
But for many auto workers in Alabama, wages aren’t the only problem. Riggins, a single mother of two, said she hopes unions will protect people like her from long hours and unpredictable work schedules. “My boss told me my work was more important than my family,” she said.
“We are committed to supporting quality jobs that pay competitive wages and offer industry-leading benefits,” Hyundai Motor Company said in a statement.
Mercedes, based in Stuttgart, Germany, is accustomed to dealing with unions in its home country, where legally half of the members of the company’s supervisory board represent employees. But in Alabama, the company opposed the union campaign. The UAW even accused the company of using illegal tactics.
The UAW filed six counts of wrongful misconduct against Mercedes before the Industrial Relations Commission, alleging that Mercedes disciplined employees for discussing forming a union at work, prevented organizers from distributing union materials, surveilled workers, and fired workers who supported the union. He was indicted on labor charges.
Mercedes denied these claims. The company said in a statement, “We have never violated or retaliated against a team member’s right to union representation,” and “We categorically deny that we have made an unfavorable employment decision based on union membership.”
Mercedes has also increased pay in recent months and worked to give employees more notice about schedule changes, workers said. But activist Mr Ellis said improvements had been made “because the unions were knocking on the door”.
