United Auto Staff (UAW) members and supporters on a picket line exterior the ZF Chassis Programs plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023.
Andi Rice | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
Mercedes-Benz staff in Alabama have voted towards union illustration by the United Auto Staff, the Nationwide Labor Relations Board stated Friday.
The outcomes are a blow to the UAW’s organizing efforts a month after the Detroit union gained an organizing drive of roughly 4,330 Volkswagen plant staff in Tennessee. Voting began Monday and ended Friday.
Union organizing failed with 56% of the vote, or 2,642 staff, casting ballots towards the UAW, in line with the NLRB, which oversaw the election. Greater than 90% of the 5,075 eligible Mercedes-Benz staff voted within the election, in line with the outcomes.
The NLRB stated 51 ballots had been challenged and never counted, however they don’t seem to be determinative to the result of the election. There have been 5 void ballots.
The union and firm have 5 enterprise days to file objections to the election, together with any alleged interference, in accordance to the NLRB. If no objections are filed, the election consequence will likely be licensed, and the union should wait one yr to file for a union election for the same bargaining unit.
Mercedes-Benz in an announcement stated firm officers “sit up for persevering with to work straight with our Staff Members to make sure [Mercedes-Benz US International] just isn’t solely their employer of selection, however a spot they might advocate to family and friends.”
United Auto Staff President Shawn Fain (proper) and UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock (left) lead a march exterior Stellantis’ Ram 1500 plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan after the union known as a strike on the plant on Oct. 23, 2023.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
The loss is predicted to harm the UAW in an unprecedented organizing drive launched late final yr of 13 non-union automakers within the U.S. after securing document contracts with Detroit automakers Ford Motor, Basic Motors and Stellantis. These agreements included important wage enhance, reinstatement of cost-of-living changes and different advantages.
UAW President Shawn Fain stated whereas the Mercedes-Benz vote was clearly not the consequence the union needed, it was a valiant effort, including the vote “is not a failure” however a “bump within the highway.”
“Whereas this loss stings, I will let you know this, we will maintain our heads up, maintain our heads up excessive. These staff don’t have anything to do however be proud within the effort they put forth and what they’ve completed,” he stated Friday throughout a media convention. “We fought the nice struggle and we will proceed on, proceed ahead. In the end, these staff listed here are going to win.”
The Mercedes-Benz vote was anticipated to be tougher for the union than the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee, the place the union had already established a presence after two failed organizing drives up to now decade and the place it confronted much less opposition from the automaker.
Stephen Silvia, creator of “The UAW’s Southern Gamble: Organizing Staff at International-Owned Car Vegetation,” famous Mercedes-Benz changed the plant’s chief weeks forward of the election. He stated firms routinely do that, promising staff modifications at their services in an effort to stave of organizing.
“Firms do anti-union campaigns as a result of they are often efficient, and I believe this one was efficient,” stated Silvia, a professor at American College in Washington, D.C. “A typical piece of an anti-union marketing campaign is firing the plant supervisor … That appears to have persuaded sufficient of the employees to vote towards the union.”
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who was certainly one of six Republican governors to sentence the union’s organizing drive, hailed the result of the vote.
“The employees in Vance have spoken, they usually have spoken clearly! Alabama just isn’t Michigan, and we’re not the Candy Residence to the UAW. We urge the UAW to respect the outcomes of this secret poll election,” she stated.
Staff at Mercedes-Benz’s Tuscaloosa plant, situated about 60 miles southwest of Birmingham, have produced greater than 4 million autos because the plant opened in 1997, together with 295,000 autos in 2023, in accordance to the plant’s web site.
The Alabama plant presently produces autos such because the gas-powered GLE and GLS Maybach SUVs in addition to the all-electric EQS and EQE SUVs.
The NLRB final week stated it continues to course of and examine open unfair labor follow costs filed by the UAW towards automakers, together with six unfair labor follow costs towards Mercedes-Benz since March.
Fain stated Friday the union would proceed to maneuver ahead with these costs. He declined to say whether or not the union plans to problem the election outcomes, saying he’d “go away that” to the union’s authorized staff.
The costs allege that Mercedes-Benz has “disciplined workers for discussing unionization at work, prohibited distribution of union supplies and paraphernalia, surveilled workers, discharged union supporters, compelled workers to attend captive viewers conferences, and made statements suggesting that union exercise is futile,” the NLRB stated.
The union has filed different costs towards automakers Honda, Hyundai, Lucid, Rivian, Tesla and Toyota, in line with the NLRB.
