{"id":1596609,"date":"2024-04-08T10:50:19","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T10:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2024\/04\/uaw-mercedes-volkswagen-alabama-tennessee-union-election\/"},"modified":"2024-04-08T10:52:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T10:52:00","slug":"the-uaw-is-gearing-up-for-two-union-elections-in-the-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/04\/08\/the-uaw-is-gearing-up-for-two-union-elections-in-the-south\/","title":{"rendered":"The UAW Is Gearing Up for Two Union Elections in the South"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

At a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and a Mercedes factory in Vance, Alabama, the United Auto Workers have filed for union elections. If the UAW wins, it would be a major victory against anti-union bulwarks.<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n \n
\n An employee does final inspections on a Mercedes-Benz C-Class at the Mercedes-Benz US International factory in Vance, Alabama. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds \/ AFP via Getty Images)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

Autoworkers are gearing up to smash through anti-union bulwarks in Alabama and Tennessee.<\/p>\n

In Chattanooga, Tennessee, at the only Volkswagen (VW) factory in the world without a union, votes will be counted April 19 as 4,300 workers who make the Atlas SUV and the ID.4 electric vehicle decide whether to join the United Auto Workers (UAW).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t think things would happen so fast,\u201d said VW worker Victor Vaughn.<\/p>\n

Momentum spurred them forward. The organizing committee recruited three hundred coworkers as election captains. \u201cWe have well over 90 percent coverage within the plant, every position, every line,\u201d said Vaughn. \u201cAt that point we knew, \u2018Yes, we\u2019re where we need to be.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Next up will be Mercedes. Workers in Vance, Alabama, at one of only two nonunion Mercedes-Benz factories on the planet, filed for an election today; a vote is expected soon after the VW vote.<\/p>\n

The five thousand workers there make the highly profitable luxury GLE SUVs and the Maybach GLS, which retails for upward of $170,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know when a person goes inside a booth,\u201d said Mercedes worker Jeremy Kimbrell<\/a>. \u201cNobody\u2019s watching, and the company\u2019s got a month to scare the hell out of them. But I feel pretty good about the vote. Workers finally stood up for themselves and are ending the Alabama discount.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than ten thousand workers at thirteen nonunion carmakers across two dozen facilities nationwide have signed union cards since last November, when the UAW announced an ambitious goal to organize 150,000 workers at major nonunion auto and battery plants.<\/p>\n

That roughly mirrors the UAW\u2019s existing Big Three membership.<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

Everyone Has a Why<\/h2>\n \n

\u201cEach employee has their why \u2014 why they wanted to start the process to form a union,\u201d Vaughn said.<\/p>\n

The main issues at VW are quality health care, retirement security, safety, and paid sick days \u2014 currently they get none.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn mid-February, we had quite a few people coming in sick because they didn\u2019t want to get penalized,\u201d said assembly-line worker Isaac Meadows. \u201cAnd then of course they got everybody else sick, and then we have a whole bunch of people out. Everybody\u2019s getting disciplinary action and losing bonuses just because they\u2019re sick and they can\u2019t come to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Workers do have a time-off bank, but annual plant closures for retooling eat into it. Meadows gets ninety-six hours of paid time off. \u201cWhen we have our scheduled shutdowns, the company takes most of it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then when we do come back to work, we\u2019re required to work a lot of Saturdays.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Got Out of the Way<\/h2>\n \n

The vote at Mercedes follows two decades of attempts that never got that far. What changed?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe union got out of the way and let the workers organize,\u201d said Kimbrell, a veteran of multiple failed campaigns in his twenty-five years here. \u201cThey\u2019ll talk to a coworker and be more honest than they will with a union organizer who calls them on the phone that they don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

In past union drives, said Mercedes worker Jacob Ryan, UAW organizers wouldn\u2019t let organizing committee members talk to their coworkers inside the plant. Instead, the union set up a tent across the street for workers to sign a paper card.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s sneaking around \u2014 acting like you\u2019re doing something wrong,\u201d Kimbrell said. Worker leaders struggled to build up a committee; after a month, recruits would lose interest and stop answering their phones or showing up for meetings.<\/p>\n

In 2014, a worker who had supported the union, Kirk Garner, publicly asked the UAW to stop the organizing drive. \u201cThis has gone on for two and half years, and people are burnt out,\u201d he said, after the pro-union committee dwindled from 180 workers to fifty, according to Stephen Silvia\u2019s recent book, The UAW\u2019s Southern Gamble: Organizing Workers at Foreign-Owned Vehicle Plants<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another worker, Jim Spitzley, tried to organize with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers instead. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that will not sign a card with the UAW,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re tired of it. They\u2019ve done it before and nothing has come of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Garner and Spitzley are backing the current drive.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

\u201cFlexed Till We Broke\u201d<\/h2>\n \n

After the Great Recession, Mercedes management increased production volume to keep up with European luxury manufacturers Audi and BMW. The chief operating officer made the pitch to workers with a chart showing how far behind Mercedes was.<\/p>\n

To increase the company\u2019s competitive edge, \u201cwe changed the way we went about things,\u201d Kimbrell said. \u201cFrom being more focused on quality and stopping the line, pointing out issues, making sure that it\u2019s built right the first time, it became about volume.\u201d<\/p>\n

That meant speedup and injuries, a plant expansion with additional shifts, and the introduction of temps who came to represent a quarter of the workforce. \u201cThanks for your continued flexibility,\u201d every memo said.<\/p>\n

To Ryan, that was a slap in the face. \u201cIt\u2019s not flexible,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a choice. One of the reasons for me wanting this union \u2014 it\u2019s time for them to be flexible. They\u2019ve flexed us till we\u2019ve broken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, then UAW president Bob King was touting the union\u2019s embrace of \u201cinnovation, flexibility, and continuous improvement,\u201d leaning into transnational union cooperation with IG Metall and Daimler works councils.<\/p>\n

In these years, Kimbrell said, the argument for a union was a \u201cmarginal\u201d increase in benefits and pay, at best. Once, a UAW assistant director even tried to sell him on two-tier pay. \u201cTwo-tier was an abomination to me,\u201d he said. \u201cIt disgusts me. I told the guy, \u2018I will never sign a contract with two-tier pay on it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t draw red lines,\u201d the union official said. \u201cBy god, I just drew one,\u201d Kimbrell said. \u201cYou can\u2019t tell me what to think!\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Worker to Worker<\/h2>\n \n

But last fall, Kimbrell watched on Facebook Live as UAW president Shawn Fain threw Stellantis\u2019s contract offer<\/a> in the trash.<\/p>\n

When the Big Three auto bosses moaned that workers\u2019 demands would wreck the economy, Fain shot<\/a> back, \u201cWe\u2019ll wreck their economy, the economy that only works for the billionaire class and not the working class.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collaboration-as-usual unionism was over.<\/p>\n

In November, Kimbrell and about twenty coworkers spoke to UAW organizing director Brian Shepherd, while weighing the option of an independent union. After some contentious meetings, they chose the UAW.<\/p>\n

The union agreed to let workers run their own campaign inside the plant, giving them access to real-time information about cards coming in and flexibility on when to file for an election. The workers credit the UAW for its research, legal, and communications support \u2014 but this time, they say, the heart of the campaign is their collective force inside the plant.<\/p>\n

Workers seek out openly pro-union leaders on the floor to ask how they can help with outreach. The committee is organized into subgroups, with visible leaders across the plant. The campaign has relied especially on people whose jobs allow them to roam freely, such as material handlers.<\/p>\n

Union leaders used to emphasize their role as master negotiators on behalf of a passive workforce. But now the union has loosened the reins and support has grown fast, keeping the drive in the headlines and generating fresh momentum: a virtuous cycle.<\/p>\n

These drives share some of the bottom-up dynamism of the Starbucks Workers United campaign. Union busters have noticed the parallel too; in captive-audience meetings they point<\/a> to Starbucks workers struggling to win a contract.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Outside Interference<\/h2>\n \n

Lobbyists and politicians in Tennessee and Alabama have mobilized against the union drives \u2014 tactics that figured heavily in the past UAW failures<\/a> at VW.<\/p>\n

Hamilton County mayor Weston Wamp called a press conference (on April Fool\u2019s Day) outside the Chattanooga plant to announce that \u201cthe UAW is a sinking ship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe employees are the union, and to have our county mayor come out against the union was really disheartening,\u201d said Vaughn. \u201cHad an election been going on for the county mayor seat right now, I can guarantee you that he would have lost by a landslide, probably to a write-in candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercedes-Benz US International CEO Michael G\u00f6bel told workers that forming a union would mean strikes, costly dues, and roadblocks to conflict resolution, Bloomberg reported. \u201cI don\u2019t believe the UAW can help us to be better,\u201d G\u00f6bel said.<\/p>\n

Alabama business groups have set up anti-union websites and dotted the highways near the plant with billboards. They\u2019ve also tried to sponsor anti-union groups in the plant, but without much success, beyond whispers of a few workers pledging to withdraw their union cards, according to Kimbrell. Compare that to a previous drive when two hundred workers joined an anti-union group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Alabama model for economic success is under attack,\u201d wrote Governor Kay Ivey in an op-ed<\/a> opposing the union campaigns at Mercedes and Hyundai, calling car manufacturing one of the state\u2019s \u201ccrown jewel industries.\u201d
\n\u201cShe\u2019s damn right it is!\u201d Fain responded on April 2. \u201cIt\u2019s under attack because workers are fed up with getting screwed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Not the Boss\u2019s Friend<\/h2>\n \n

Since the last union efforts, the workforce has become majority black. When the company used one of its black managers to spew union-busting talking points, workers saw through it and laughed off the company\u2019s \u201cpathetic\u201d attempt to pander.<\/p>\n

None of the four major auto plants in Alabama \u2014 Mercedes, Hyundai, Toyota, and Honda \u2014 nor their suppliers are located where black majorities live. But workers like Moesha Chandler have moved to get auto jobs.<\/p>\n

She grew up in Uniontown, a small town about an hour away, with no grocery stores and no high-paying jobs.<\/p>\n

At Mercedes she found higher pay, but little respect. Group leaders use \u201cdiscretion,\u201d she says, to abuse their authority, grilling workers about bathroom breaks, denying them a break even to take insulin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what plowed the fields \u2014 the treatment,\u201d Kimbrell said. \u201cAnd then the workers, we cultivated the anger at the company.\u201d<\/p>\n

In previous organizing drives, the UAW presented itself as the best way to collaborate for win-win solutions \u2014 even promising in advance not to go for \u201cuncompetitive\u201d wages. But what worker needs a union to help kiss the boss\u2019s ass?<\/p>\n

Kimbrell prefers Fain\u2019s approach: openly adversarial. \u201cPeople see that, and they\u2019re like, yeah, we don\u2019t want to hold hands,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll tell them, \u2018What you\u2019re doing is wrong. We don\u2019t want that, we want this. And we\u2019re the workers, so yeah, we\u2019re not your friends.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n\n\n

This post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Autoworkers are gearing up to smash through anti-union bulwarks in Alabama and Tennessee. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, at the only Volkswagen (VW) factory in the world without a union, votes will be counted April 19 as 4,300 workers who make the Atlas SUV and the ID.4 electric vehicle decide whether to join the United Auto Workers [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":737,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596609"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/737"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1596609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1596610,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596609\/revisions\/1596610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1596609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1596609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1596609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}