A serious milestone was reached Tuesday when a majority of workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama, signed union cards. It was the result of a recently launched organizing drive by the United Auto Workers in nonunion plants, particularly in the South.
In November, fresh after winning a historic contract victory following a strike against the Big Three automakers, UAW President Shawn Fain announced that the union would launch one of the largest organizing drives in its history, targeting nonunion U.S. plants owned by large foreign automakers as well as Elon Musk’s Tesla electric vehicle manufacturer.
In February, the UAW announced that it’s committing $40 million through 2026 to organize nonunion autoworkers and battery workers across the U.S., particularly in southern states. Under Fain’s leadership, the UAW has become a fighting union. When the UAW endorsed President Joe Biden last month—the first sitting president to walk a union picket line—Fain denounced former President Donald Trump as “a scab” who represents the billionaire class.
And that fighting spirit is facilitating the union’s organizing drive in places where it has failed before, like the Alabama Mercedes plant.
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More than 6,000 people work at the plant, which produces the Mercedes GLE, GLE coupé, and GLS model series as well as the all-electric EQS SUV and EQE. The AL.com website reported:
It’s a stunning announcement for an auto factory in a right-to-work state that has historically resisted the union’s organizing efforts in the 27 years since the German automaker opened the plant—the first in Alabama.
And the news comes only two months into an organizing drive by the union in Southern auto factories.
According to the UAW, more than 10,000 nonunion autoworkers across 14 auto companies have signed union cards and begun organizing to join the UAW in the wake of the successful strike against the Big Three—General Motors, Ford Motor, and Chrysler parent Stellantis.
In a video announcement, Jeremy Kimbrell, a measurement machine operator, surrounded by coworkers at the Mercedes plant, described some of the driving forces behind the workers’ grassroots organizing campaign—workers going many years with only minimal raises, a two-tier wage system, and the abuse of temporary workers. These grievances also were highlighted in the UAW’s successful strike against the Big Three last fall.
And like Fain, Kimbrell did not hold back in talking about who had gained at the workers’ expense, saying, “For years, we’ve fallen further behind while Mercedes has made billions.” He added:
“There comes a time when enough is enough,” Kimbrell said. “Now is that time. We know what the company, what the politicians, and what their multi-millionaire buddies will say. They’ll say now is not the right time. Or that this is not the right way. But here’s the thing. This is our decision. It’s our life. It’s our community. These are our families. It’s up to us.”
And he concluded by saying that the workers “organized our plant by ourselves” and “are exercising our right to fight for a better life.”
“So we’re here to tell you that we are the majority. That Mercedes workers are ready to stand up. And we’re asking all of you watching this, whether you’re an autoworker at Mercedes or just someone who believes in a better life for working class people in Alabama and beyond: stand with us. Support our cause, and join our movement.”
Now this is happening in a state where racist political leaders have long sought to divide white and Black workers. Take a look at the Mercedes UAW workers website and the photos of the workers involved in the organizing drive: they are Black and white, male and female, united in a common cause.
Kimbrell told HuffPost that interest in the organizing campaign at Mercedes swelled after seeing the Big Three autoworkers fight their way to a better contract. “We had a fertile ground to spread the message, and, shoot, it took off,” he said.
In an article for the Labor Notes website, Kimbrell noted that past organizing campaigns, including a major push in 2013-14, at the Mercedes plant had failed because the UAW was using a traditional playbook that didn’t work. This time he said the new UAW administration endorsed a “worker-led” grassroots campaign that also made use of social media and text messages.
The drive started by building up a small core group of extremely dedicated workers, then enlisting a much larger group of “talkers” who would engage in one-on-one talks with their coworkers and then use text messaging to move fast, Kimbrell said.
The UAW website has endorsed a “30-50-70” strategy for its organizing drive at nonunion auto plants. At 30%, workers make a public announcement. At 50%, workers hold a public rally. At 70%, with an organizing committee made up of workers from every shift and job classification, the UAW will “demand that the company recognize our union. If they don’t, we file cards with the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) and take it to a vote.”
Fain has been in regular touch with IG Metall, the union which represents workers at all the auto factories in Germany, according to The American Prospect. IG Metall itself is engaged in a major organizing campaign at the only nonunion auto factory in Germany, which is Tesla’s.
AL.com reported that the CEO of Mercedes-Benz’s Vance plant held a mandatory meeting for workers last week to spread an anti-union message that workers “shouldn’t have to pay union dues that generate millions of dollars per year for an organization where you have no transparency where that money is used.”
Bloomberg, which reported it had obtained a recording of the meeting, said Michael Göbel, who oversees production in North America for the automaker, also told workers he doesn’t believe “the UAW can help us to be better.” …
“I believe you shouldn’t have to go through strikes, years of negotiation, or complicated processes to communicate and resolve conflicts,” Göbel said.
A company spokesman, Edward Taylor, told Bloomberg that Göbel did emphasize that “the decision on unionization is ultimately up to each individual team member and we must respect each other’s opinions.”
But the Mercedes plant workers have to battle against the headwinds of Alabama Republican leaders and business figures who are stridently anti-union. AL.com wrote:
Alabama’s commerce secretary, Ellen McNair, said the unionization drive “places our state’s main economic driver in the crosshairs.” And the CEO of the Business Council of Alabama, Helena Duncan, announced a website, Alabama Strong, online advertisements, and a campaign to “provide Alabamians with a full and thorough picture of the economic dangers that unionization presents.”
And Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, in a column posted on the Alabama Department of Commerce website on Jan. 10, when the UAW announced it had hit the 30% signup mark at the Mercedes plant, said:
Unfortunately, the Alabama model for economic success is under attack. A national labor union, the United Automotive Workers (UAW), is ramping up efforts to target non-union automakers throughout the United States, including ours here in Alabama.
Make no mistake about it: These are out-of-state special interest groups, and their special interests do not include Alabama or the men and women earning a career in Alabama’s automotive industry.
But despite these pressures, the workers at the Mercedes plant UAW organizers are determined to stand up with the whole working class. Here’s the inspiring video they released on Jan. 10:
