Per week after dropping a hard-fought election at two Mercedes-Benz factories in Alabama, the United Vehicle Staff requested federal officers on Friday to order a brand new vote, saying the German carmaker violated labor legal guidelines to suppress help for the union.
Mercedes-Benz carried out a “relentless anti-union marketing campaign” marked by “wanton lawlessness,” the U.A.W. stated in a grievance to the Nationwide Labor Relations Board. Amongst different issues, the union stated, Mercedes fired 4 staff who supported the union, prevented pro-union staff from campaigning and compelled staff to observe anti-union movies.
Staff on the Mercedes factories outdoors Tuscaloosa, which manufacture sport utility autos and battery packs, voted 56 % to 44 % in opposition to becoming a member of the union. However the labor board can order a brand new election if, after a listening to, a regional director determines that improper conduct by an employer affected the vote, a spokeswoman for the board stated.
Mercedes denied that it had used improper strategies to defeat the union drive. A majority of staff “indicated they aren’t all for being represented by the U.A.W.,” the corporate stated in a press release on Friday.
“All through the election, we labored with the N.L.R.B. to stick to its tips, and we’ll proceed to take action,” Mercedes stated.
The Alabama consequence interrupted a string of victories by the U.A.W. within the South, together with persuading a big majority of the employees at a Volkswagen manufacturing unit in Chattanooga, Tenn., to vote to affix the union and securing substantial pay raises in a brand new contract with Daimler Truck in North Carolina.
Organizing staff in Southern states, which have lengthy been hostile to unions, is a excessive precedence for the U.A.W. The area is attracting a big share of the billions of {dollars} that firms are investing in electric-car and battery factories.
By the identical token, Southern elected leaders like Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, a Republican, have labored to maintain unions out, seeing them as a risk to their capacity to draw extra factories and jobs.
