By Luis Feliz Leon and Jane Slaughter - Labor Notes, May 17, 2024
A no-holds-barred campaign by Mercedes management convinced a majority of workers at its Alabama factory complex to vote against forming a union.
In addition to anti-union videos and mailings, captive-audience meetings, firings, and an onslaught of pressure from state politicians and even a local pastor, the winning move was to fire the company’s U.S. CEO and replace him with a vice president who promised to care about the “team members.”
A team leader named Ray Trammell, who voted no, said his area was 100 percent union before the former CEO was removed. “[New CEO] Federico [Kochlowski] has been a positive influence,” he said. “A lot of people want to give him a chance. It was all production-driven before him; he’s more about the team members. He’s willing to change.
“We have a year. We have that year to see what he does. If he doesn’t make positive changes we can bring the union in.” (After losing an election a union has to wait a year before filing a new petition for the same group of workers.)
The vote, held May 13-17, was 2,045 in favor of forming a union to 2,642 against. The majority of the workforce is Black. There were 51 challenged ballots, and five voided; 5,075 workers, not including contract workers, were eligible to vote.
“These courageous workers took on this fight because they wanted justice,” said United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain. He said the federal government and the German government are investigating the intimidation that Mercedes inflicted on workers, following the “same playbook” of union-busting as other U.S. employers.
“Ultimately these workers are going to win,” he said. “We have no regrets in this fight.”
Pro-union fit and finish worker Rick Webster had brought his fourth-grade son Aaron to the vote count. “I wanted him to witness history,” he said shortly beforehand. “It’s going to be life-changing. We can’t wait. We will be able to negotiate instead of being dictated to.”
At Mercedes, previous union efforts had never gotten this far. So this was the first time workers had experienced a full-on anti-union campaign—and it worked on some of them. A worker named Keda, for example, said she wanted to “give Federico a chance.” She pointed to management’s elimination of two-tier wages as an indication of good faith.
Others voted no more out of fear than out of hope. “If it’s not broke, don’t rock the boat,” said a worker named Terry. Team leader Arthur Bates said he didn’t want to see layoffs. “Mercedes has shareholders and they have to keep the shareholders happy,” he explained. “If they lose some money somewhere, the company will find a way to make that money back.”
The workers who have been fighting so hard to organize were surprised and disappointed at the loss—but they said their resolve wasn’t shaken. “We’ll try to figure out what we did wrong, where we missed the mark,” said battery worker Robert Lett. “We’ll try to figure out how to shore up for the next time. Because there will be another time. We’re not just going to shrug and walk away.
“We know this company; we know their M.O. We know the company values their profits more than they value their employees. As soon as they feel like it’s advantageous to them, they’re not going to take workers’ personal lives into account.”
“It’s disappointing that some of our supporters slipped to vote no,” said Kirk Garner, a quality worker in plant two. “It’s disappointing that the company put on an anti-union campaign when it was part of their company policy not to.”
But, he said, “we’ve been trying this for 25 years. We’ll try again next year and every year till we get it. We’ll wait three or four months and start over.”
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