UAW's push to unionize factories in South faces latest test in vote at 2 Mercedes plants in Alabama
The United Auto Workers union faces the latest test of its ambitious plan to unionize auto plants in the historically nonunion South when a vote ends at two Mercedes-Benz factories near Tuscaloosa, Alabama
DETROIT — The United Auto Workers union faces the latest test of its ambitious plan to unionize auto plants in the historically nonunion South when a vote ends Friday at two Mercedes-Benz factories near Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
The voting at the two Mercedes factories — one an assembly plant, the other a battery-making facility — comes a month after the UAW scored a breakthrough victory at Volkswagen's assembly factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In that election, VW workers voted overwhelmingly to join the UAW, drawn by the prospect of substantially higher wages and other benefits.
The UAW had little success before then recruiting at nonunion auto plants in the South, where workers have been much less drawn to organized labor than in the traditional union strongholds of Michigan and other industrial Midwest states.
A victory at the Mercedes plants would represent a huge plum for the union, which has long struggled to overcome the enticements that Southern states have bestowed on foreign automakers, including tax breaks, lower labor costs and a nonunion workforce.
Some Southern governors have warned voting for union membership could, over time, cost workers their jobs because of the higher costs that the auto companies would have to bear.
Yet the UAW is operating from a stronger position than in the past. Besides its victory in Chattanooga, it achieved generous new contracts last fall after striking against Detroit Big 3 automakers: General Motors, Stellantis and Ford. Workers there gained 33% pay raises in contracts
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