The American South is deeply conservative and has held an anti-union stance since the Confederacy. If The union tendencies continue in this direction however that may no longer be the case. Around 5,200 Mercedes-Benz factory workers in Vance will cast their votes on the issue of unionization next month. The good news for those at Merc who support joining the United Auto Workers union is that the majority of Alabama wants it too. Accordingly a recent survey by More perfect unionover 52 percent of the state supports unionization of auto workerswhile only 21 percent responded against.
On April 22, workers at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee voted to join the UAW, breached the dam and pushed UAW territory further south and outside the Big Three. Apparently these new union pushes were inspired by the union’s major collective bargaining victories last fall. A similar organizing initiative is underway at the Hyundai plant in Montgomery. Admittedly, Tennessee is not Alabama, and workers at Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai face an uphill battle.
Alabama voted overwhelmingly in favor Accused of a crime, Donald Trump in the last presidential election, and the state’s residents generally agree wholeheartedly with it Anti-union Republican Gov. Key Ivey. Ivey joined the governors of Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas to issue a joint statement denouncing unionization efforts in their states. However, according to the survey, support for the unionization effort “stretched across partisan divides, education levels, age and race.” Wishing your neighbors better and safer working conditions is truly a bipartisan issue.
Click here to continue with the survey More perfect union:
Even though Ivey did repeatedly and clearly criticized unionsVoters in their state overwhelmingly recognized its benefits: 72 percent of Alabamians said they believed UAW representation would bring higher wages to workers, and 71 percent said the union would lead to better health care and pension benefits, and 69 percent predicted safer conditions for union autoworkers.
More than seventy percent of Mercedes-Benz plant workers have signed National Labor Relations Board cards, despite aggressive anti-union tactics from management, including a personal anti-union presentation by Dimitris Psillakis, CEO of all stakeholders at Mercedes-Benz US