The United Auto Workers (UAW) publicly launched a union card drive Wednesday at a Mercedes-Benz manufacturing plant near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. announcedmaking good on its promise to expand its membership beyond the “big three” U.S. automakers.
The move comes in the wake of a six-week strike last fall by the Big Three – Ford, General Motors and Stellantis – in which unions handed out big gains to their members.
As of Wednesday, more than 1,500 workers at the plant, or about 30%, had signed union cards, according to the UAW. The mark allows unions to demand factory elections orchestrated by the National Labor Relations Board and protected by the federal government.
This comes one month after the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, achieved the same union card milestone. The union said it would not call for an election until 70% of employees sign union cards. choose instead For public demonstrations and pressure campaigns.
“Before, people didn't know if there was a path forward here,” plant employee Jeremy Kimbrel said in a statement. “Everyone is coming together now to see what the path is, and that is through the unions.”
“If we get a union here, people will look at Mercedes again and say this is not just a job, this is a career job,” he continued. “This is a job that generations will want to work in. And it's going to spread to suppliers and spread even wider.”
The union emphasized the industry's profitability in its case for membership. Mercedes has made $156 billion in gross profits over the past decade, and the union claimed profits have increased 200% in the past three years even as wages have stagnated.
Some manufacturers, such as Toyota Motor Corporation, aggressively increased wages and benefits for workers after the UAW won new contracts to discourage unionization. Unions said these benefits were not enough.
The South is a weak area for organized labor in general and the UAW in particular. Although some small parts manufacturers are unionized, the region's major auto plants are not.
After the UAW agreed to a new contract with the Big Three after the October strike, union president Sean Fein promised to extend membership to other major automakers. Manufacturers like Tesla, BMW, and Nissan use a mostly non-union workforce.
“One of our biggest goals from winning this historic contract is to organize an organization like no one has ever organized before,” Fain said. “When we go back to the negotiating table in 2028, it's not just going to be the Big Three. It's going to be the Big 5 or the Big 6.”
Previous union votes have been rejected at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga in 2014 and at the Nissan plant in Mississippi in 2017.
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