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The United Auto Workers hit a roadblock when workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama voted against unionizing last week.
UAW leaders vowed to press on with their bid to organize non-union workers across the automotive industry—and labor experts said that while the Mercedes loss is a setback, it doesn’t have to spoil the broader movement.
“It’s a David-versus-Goliath fight,” UAW President Shawn Fain said during a May 17 news conference after the National Labor Relations Board confirmed that 56% of workers had rejected the union. “Sometimes, Goliath wins the battle, but ultimately David will win the war. These workers will win their fair share.”
Fain accused Mercedes of engaging in “egregious illegal behavior,” which the company has previously denied. It’s been widely reported that Mercedes ran a fierce anti-union campaign, and the UAW’s organizing efforts are facing strong opposition from Republican elected officials like Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey.
In a statement, Mercedes said that its “goal throughout this process was to ensure every eligible team member had the opportunity to participate in a fair election.”
The UAW unveiled its organizing campaign after winning record contracts for about 150,000 Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis workers following a historic strike last year. It looks to organize workers at foreign automakers and electric-vehicle makers, including Honda, Hyundai, Rivian, Tesla, and Toyota.
The effort aims in part to secure jobs at EV assembly and battery plants amid concerns about potential job losses during the electric transition.
The union won its first election at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a vote that was seen as a major test of the UAW’s ability to expand its influence beyond the domestic auto industry and into the historically anti-union South.
Despite the loss being a “big disappointment for the UAW…there are legal avenues open to the UAW to challenge the outcome,” Sharon Block, professor of practice and executive director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School and a former NLRB and Labor Department official, noted in a statement sent by Evan Kendall of SKDK.
Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University’s ILR School, told Tech Brew via email that the loss “should not stop their organizing efforts in the South and non-union auto sector.”
“Mercedes and the state governor actively pushing anti-union activities makes organizing tough,” he said. “It was the first vote; it likely won’t be the last.”