Workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama began voting Monday on whether to join the United Auto Workers union, a significant test of whether the labor group can maintain momentum in the historically anti-union American South.
A union victory at the plant, weeks after a resounding win at a Volkswagen factory in Tennessee, would be a watershed moment for the UAW as it seeks to organize more than a dozen automakers across the nation and add to its dwindling ranks. The campaign at Mercedes has been much more contentious. The company has urged workers to vote no, according to fliers and signage viewed by Reuters. Mercedes also hired anti-union firms to speak with workers, plant employees said.
However, the factory sits deep in the American South, which has historically been more resistant to unions. In one of its last efforts there in August 2017, the UAW lost a vote at Nissan’s Canton, Mississippi, plant by a 2-to-1 margin. “The challenge is very significant to win at the Mercedes plant and in states like Alabama ... where there really has been so little union activity,” said Kate Andrias, a professor at Columbia Law School who specializes in labor law.
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