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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nA manager wearing a T-shirt supporting the new CEO waited in the plant cafeteria for results from the vote count. The company’s winning move was to fire its U.S. CEO and replace him with a vice president who promised to care about the \u201cteam members.\u201d Photo: Luis Feliz Leon<\/p>\n\n\n\n This story originally appeared in Labor Notes<\/a> on May 17, 2024. It is shared here with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ano-holds-barred campaign by Mercedes management convinced a majority of workers at its Alabama factory complex to vote against forming a union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Be a catalyst for change. Support fearless journalism by donating to The Real News Network<\/strong><\/a> today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019s U.S. CEO and replace him with a vice president who promised to care about the \u201cteam members.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A team leader named Ray Trammell, who voted no, said his area was 100 percent union before the former CEO was removed. \u201c[New CEO] Federico [Kochlowski] has been a positive influence,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of people want to give him a chance. It was all production-driven before him; he\u2019s more about the team members. He\u2019s willing to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have a year. We have that year to see what he does. If he doesn\u2019t make positive changes we can bring the union in.\u201d (After losing an election a union has to wait a year before filing a new petition for the same group of workers.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese courageous workers took on this fight because they wanted justice,\u201d 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 \u201csame playbook\u201d of union-busting as other U.S. employers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUltimately these workers are going to win,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have no regrets in this fight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pro-union fit and finish worker Rick Webster had brought his fourth-grade son Aaron to the vote count. \u201cI wanted him to witness history,\u201d he said shortly beforehand. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be life-changing. We can\u2019t wait. We will be able to negotiate instead of being dictated to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2014and it worked on some of them. A worker named Keda, for example, said she wanted to \u201cgive Federico a chance.\u201d She pointed to management\u2019s elimination of two-tier wages as an indication of good faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Join thousands of others who rely on our journalism to navigate complex issues, uncover hidden truths, and challenge the status quo with our free newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox three times a week<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Others voted no more out of fear than out of hope. \u201cIf it\u2019s not broke, don\u2019t rock the boat,\u201d said a worker named Terry. Team leader Arthur Bates said he didn\u2019t want to see layoffs. \u201cMercedes has shareholders and they have to keep the shareholders happy,\u201d he explained. \u201cIf they lose some money somewhere, the company will find a way to make that money back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The workers who have been fighting so hard to organize were surprised and disappointed at the loss\u2014but they said their resolve wasn\u2019t shaken. \u201cWe\u2019ll try to figure out what we did wrong, where we missed the mark,\u201d said battery worker Robert Lett. \u201cWe\u2019ll try to figure out how to shore up for the next time. Because there will be another time. We\u2019re not just going to shrug and walk away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe 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\u2019s advantageous to them, they\u2019re not going to take workers\u2019 personal lives into account.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s disappointing that some of our supporters slipped to vote no,\u201d said Kirk Garner, a quality worker in plant two. \u201cIt\u2019s disappointing that the company put on an anti-union campaign when it was part of their company policy not to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, he said, \u201cwe\u2019ve been trying this for 25 years. We\u2019ll try again next year and every year till we get it. We\u2019ll wait three or four months and start over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UAW declared last fall after winning landmark contracts at the Big 3 automakers General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis that it would springboard its militant strike into organizing across more than two dozen non-union auto plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\u2019s loss follows a landmark union victory<\/a> April 19 at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where 4,300 workers joined the UAW\u2014the first auto assembly plant election the union had won in the South since the 1940s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Workers there had been through two previous narrowly lost union campaigns, in 2014<\/a> and 2019<\/a>. Their management had promised to \u201cdo better,\u201d and workers had been let down each time. That, combined with the momentum of the UAW\u2019s record contracts in fall 2023, gave nearly three-quarters of VW workers the impetus to vote yes last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The success at Volkswagen boosted organizing at Mercedes, though not quite enough to put it over the top. \u201cWhen Volkswagen workers won their union, when Daimler Truck<\/a> got their big raise, we could point to it\u2014this isn\u2019t just a dream that we\u2019re selling,\u201d said Lett.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\u2019s sad outcome makes the score so far one win and one loss in the UAW\u2019s $40 million push to bring 150,000 non-union auto workers into the union, most of them in Southern states\u2014and all of them facing employers, from Toyota to BMW, who located their plants with an eye to remaining union-free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mercedes\u2019 union-busting program included doling out carrots. In February, a month after workers reached 30 percent on union cards, the company announced it would hike the top pay by $2 and eliminate the wage tiers, so now everyone would top out at $34 after four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael G\u00f6bel, president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, stepped down in a video message<\/a> that workers were shown in April. G\u00f6bel had groused<\/a> in a captive-audience meeting about a worker\u2019s claim<\/a> that Mercedes had come here for the \u201cAlabama discount\u201d: low wages. The top pay of $34 may appear high, but not compared to $43 for production workers at Ford by the contract\u2019s end in 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though his departure showed the union drive was already getting results, the firing of G\u00f6bel swayed some workers into the \u201cno\u201d column. Kochlowski circulated a letter the first day of voting thanking workers for a \u201cwarm welcome,\u201d promising vague things like \u201cto make this a place you\u2019re proud to work,\u201d and imploring them to give him a chance. He had walked the floor the last two weeks talking to literally thousands of workers and making promises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople bought that bullshit about the new CEO,\u201d said David Johnston, a battery worker on the organizing committee. \u201cWe needed every vote we could get to win, especially in plant two [the non-electric vehicle plant]. But unfortunately workers flipped. The fight is far from over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sandra, with 21 years in, works in quality control. She voted no. \u201cI pray it doesn\u2019t happen,\u201d she said before the vote count. \u201cI earned a really good living, put two kids in the University of Alabama without having to take out loans, at $27 an hour. Now I make $34.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIs any company perfect? No. The new president is willing to work with us team members. You still can earn a good living. Some of the people pushing the union are disgruntled.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Mercedes also brought out the stick. It sent a barrage of anti-union text messages, held captive-audience meetings to grill union supporters, played anti-union videos at daily team meetings, put an anti-union banner at the factory entrance, and hired a union-busting firm, RWP. That\u2019s to be expected in the dictatorships that are U.S. workplaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe company brought in some anti-union consultants,\u201d Garner said. \u201cThey would bring small groups into a meeting room and show them videos with half-truths about unions\u2014and apparently that worked on some people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey get paid $3,200 a day apiece and there were three of them, for three weeks. You can check that out when they file their LM-20 at the end of the month.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The company\u2019s official \u201cprinciples\u201d say executives will remain neutral in organizing campaigns, but Mercedes has carried on its anti-union offensive even after the UAW filed charges against it last month for violating a German supply chain law and after the U.S. government and the European Commission asked it to respect workers\u2019 right to organize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The German government is now investigating Mercedes<\/a> for illegal union-busting conduct. The Alabama plant is operated by Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, a subsidiary of Stuttgart-based Mercedes-Benz Group AG.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAlabama auto workers are sick of the interference from Mercedes in our organization efforts,\u201d said battery plant worker Brett Garrard ahead of the vote. \u201cThis is what we deal with\u2014not to mention the captive-audience meetings, the mandatory anti-union videos and propaganda they force-feed us after we are on the clock, in what is supposed to be our start-up meeting to discuss the daily topics such as safety, quality, and morale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey were clearly trying to prey on people\u2019s emotions with the constant barrage from all sides,\u201d Lett said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UAW filed six unfair labor practice charges against the company for firing union supporters, banning union materials, surveilling employees, holding captive-audience meetings, disciplining employees for discussing unionization, and implying that union activity is futile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve got no use for it,\u201d said Tim Earnest, a quality worker who has been here 27 years. \u201cWe don\u2019t need them. They are a divisive force.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ciarra Tate, an assembly worker, said she didn\u2019t vote at all because she was only planning to work here for the short term, planning to start a career in health care. She has been at Mercedes two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alabama Governor Kay Ivey and the Business Council of Alabama have been vociferous in their opposition to the UAW\u2019s new drives. Ivey said<\/a> that unions would attack \u201cthe Alabama model for economic success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Six Southern governors, including Ivey, signed an April letter urging workers to reject the UAW lest they undermine the auto industry\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As workers began voting this week, Ivey signed legislation May 13 that would revoke economic incentives for companies that voluntarily recognize unions. Nathaniel Ledbetter, the Republican speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, who pushed the law through, called the UAW \u201cdangerous leeches<\/a>\u201d in an anti-union op-ed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ivey said at a Chamber of Commerce function, \u201cWe want to ensure that Alabama values, not Detroit values, continue to define the future of this great state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re up against our local government,\u201d said Garrard. \u201cWe\u2019re up against the Business Council of Alabama, the corporate elites, and we\u2019re working-class Americans. So why are you waging war on us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is not a political fight. We just seem to have a political enemy. Our fight is for fair treatment, respect, and auto worker pay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Mercedes workers began their 12-hour shifts at 6 a.m. May 13, their phones buzzed with a company text message<\/a>: \u201cHere in Alabama, community is important, and family is everything. We believe it\u2019s important to keep work separate. But there\u2019s no denying, a union would have an impact beyond the walls of our plant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For its last-ditch union-busting effort, Mercedes called in divine intervention in the form of a video message<\/a> from Reverend Matthew Wilson, a pastor of the Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Marion, Alabama, and a city councilperson for Tuscaloosa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the video, Rev. Wilson implored workers to give Kochlowski a chance, saying \u201cthe legacy of the state of Alabama is counting\u201d on it. The reverend also walked around the shop floor<\/a> talking to workers one on one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is a strategy as old as unions,\u201d said Kate Bronfenbrenner of the Cornell University School of Industrial Labor Relations. Indeed, in the 1930s Henry Ford recruited Black pastors to recommend new-hires and oppose the UAW at his Ford Rouge plant outside Detroit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cParticularly in towns dominated by a very large corporation,\u201d Bronfenbrenner said, \u201ccompanies give enough money to churches to purchase their long-term loyalty, and rely on the church leaders to preach an anti-union message.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey had everything, except the guys in the mob movies with the billy clubs doing the union-busting,\u201d said Lett.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Previous efforts at Mercedes over the past two decades had always fizzled before coming to a vote, the most recent in 2022, stalled at 20 percent on cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What was different<\/a> about this drive? \u201cFirst off, the workers were up front leading the campaign as opposed to the previous one,\u201d Lett said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the organizing took place mainly inside the plant, rather than in house-visit blitzes: \u201cThe strategy this time was to focus on the area that you work in and talk to the people you see literally every day, because you already have rapport with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lett said workers took pains not to make it sound like they were recruiters or selling anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those in different work areas played different roles. \u201cIf you\u2019re someone like me whose position is constrained to one particular spot, you see the same handful of people all the time. So I\u2019m talking to them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you\u2019re a tugger or forklift driver, you\u2019re going all around the shop grabbing parts, delivering parts. I might not have the same kind of rapport with people I see. But I can come back, \u2018Hey, man, the people on trim three, they\u2019re not really feeling the union. Someone should go talk to them.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd so you\u2019re able to build a network, able to figure out where the strengths and weaknesses are. And you can actually strategize based on what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong to make these adjustments in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The organizing drive was fueled by workers\u2019 anger. Plant conditions had gotten more and more grueling, due to a combination of high turnover and understaffing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the start of the pandemic, the company shut down from March to May. When workers returned in May, Mercedes laid off all the temps. \u201cThat was like roughly a third of our workforce\u2014just gone,\u201d said Lett. \u201cSo because of that, Mercedes went from three shifts and combined them into two. They were assuming that the market demand was going to be lower.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That didn\u2019t happen. But instead of hiring more people, Mercedes tried to wring out more production from its reduced workforce. \u201cThey just tried to get the same output out of two shift people instead of three,\u201d said Lett. \u201cSo you\u2019re going from working roughly eight hours a day, five days a week, maybe a Saturday here and there to working 10-plus hours a day, roughly six days a week on a regular basis, with one weekend off a month.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the company tried to hire more people, they would leave just as soon as they started the job because of the exhausting demands. \u201cWe went from making maybe 300 cars a shift to making 430,\u201d said Lett.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Supply chain snarls contributed to a chip shortage. But the Alabama plant was a moneymaker, Lett said, so the company closed other factories worldwide and had the chips sent to Alabama to keep up with the high demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Mercedes plant is the most prominent exporter in Alabama\u2019s auto industry; 100 or more supplier companies in the area employ thousands more workers. Its annual economic impact on Alabama was estimated at $1.5 billion in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These supply chain investments make anti-union threats of layoffs and a plant relocation less effective company talking points, because it\u2019s less plausible<\/a> to imagine Mercedes walking away from all this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you put Mercedes together with Honda in Talladega County, Hyundai in Montgomery, and Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, Alabama\u2019s exports hit $27.4 billion in 2023, according to Made in Alabama<\/a>, a pro-business website linked to the union-busting website Alabama Strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mercedes workers build the luxury SUV models GLE and $170,000 Maybach GLS, and batteries for electric vehicle models EQE and EQS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The productivity comes at a high cost to workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor a lot of the workers at Mercedes, there isn\u2019t a singular event that led up to the union campaign,\u201d said Detrick Lewis, an assembly line worker in the body shop who has been here since 2014. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like a snowball at the top of the mountain. You don\u2019t pay any attention to that small ball, but once it\u2019s a giant boulder coming down, then it\u2019s: how did it get so big?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Mercedes moved from three eight-hour shifts to two 10s or 12s, it eliminated the graveyard shift, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., which had allowed parents to plan around their children\u2019s school schedules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNow a lot of workers\u2014single mothers and fathers\u2014weren\u2019t able to find childcare because their schedules revolved around them working at night,\u201d said Lewis. Parents had depended on the schedule over the past 10 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jacqueline Johnson-Avery, an assembly worker in quality control with 25 years on the job, said she had preferred the overnight shift as better for childcare; it also paid more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The changes haven\u2019t stopped, and they\u2019ve only grown more frequent and arbitrary. Workers say management has changed work schedules five times since the Christmas shutdown. The current schedule is six 10-hour shifts in a row, two days off, six more days on, then five days off (excluding Sundays). The result is only one Saturday off per month; workers used to get two. And most Saturdays will be paid at straight time; time-and-a-half kicks in only after 40 hours per week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Johnson-Avery said the preferred, lighter jobs aren\u2019t assigned by seniority. Instead, many go to lower-paid temps who work for contractors (and weren\u2019t eligible to vote).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In February the Department of Labor recovered $438,625<\/a> in back wages, unpaid bonuses, and damages for two workers who were fired after requesting family leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Injuries are common. Workers stand on their feet for 10 to 12 hours, without breaks for long stretches of time, while working at a pace of 72 seconds per car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garrard was a steelworker before he was hired at Mercedes in 2004. \u201cI thought I was a pretty tough guy,\u201d he said. \u201cI did hard work. I came here and started turning little screws\u2014hundreds of thousands of them a day. My hands have never hurt so bad in my life. I go home: I\u2019m soaking hands in Epsom salts and hot baths.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re making high-end vehicles, and the company is pretending they can\u2019t afford to give us raises and good health insurance,\u201d said Lett. \u201cThe idea they\u2019ll just nickel and dime us because we\u2019re in a low cost of living area is a slap to the face. You guys made $18 billion with a \u2018b\u2019 in profits last year!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nationally, the conditions are ripe for organizing: historically low unemployment, a tight labor market, high approval ratings for unions, a National Labor Relations Board that is following the letter of the law for once, and a reinvigorated labor movement that\u2019s showing what union power can achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UAW in particular is riding a wave of momentum<\/a> after winning landmark contracts at the Big 3 automakers last fall. The UAW spent $152 million on strike benefits<\/a> for workers in 2023\u2014compared to the $116 million the entire labor movement spent in 2022, according to union researcher Chris Bohner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mercedes workers debated on Facebook the UAW\u2019s April contract at Daimler Truck in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. Mercedes is Daimler\u2019s largest shareholder. After coming to the brink of a strike,\u200b\u200b Daimler workers won a deal<\/a> that ends wage tiers, boosts wages 25 percent over four years, adds a cost-of-living adjustment based on the formula of the Big 3 contracts, and creates, for the first time, profit-sharing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mercedes has made $156 billion in profits over the last decade, according to the UAW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou hear about what UPS Teamsters got in their contract, what the Big 3 auto workers won in their strike, you see what happened with Volkswagen in Tennessee, and Daimler Truck in North Carolina\u2014these are all huge wins,\u201d said Lewis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd people are seeing this and looking at their workplace. You come to work at Mercedes and their slogan is \u2018The best or nothing.\u2019 They carry that legacy of the best for everything, except for their workers.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Luis Feliz Leon is a staff writer and organizer with Labor Notes. Follow him on Twitter @Lfelizleon<\/a>.More by Luis Feliz Leon<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A no-holds-barred campaign by Mercedes management convinced a majority of workers at its Alabama factory complex to vote against forming a union. BY\u00a0LUIS FELIZ LEON MAY 21, 2024 (TheRealNews.com) A manager wearing a T-shirt supporting the new CEO waited in the plant cafeteria for results from the vote count. The… Continue reading ![\"Labor](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/therealnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Labor-Notes-Masthead-Logo-3.jpg?resize=780%2C158&ssl=1\"){kind=logo}
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nONE WIN, ONE LOSS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
DOLING OUT CARROTS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u2026AND THE STICK<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
HEAVY POLITICAL PRESSURE<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
COMPANY PASTOR<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
WORKER-RUN CAMPAIGN<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
GRUELING UNDERSTAFFING<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
FLUCTUATING SCHEDULES<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
ACHING BODIES<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
FAVORABLE CONDITIONS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
LUIS FELIZ LEON<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n