Union vote fails at Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa County

Workers at Tuscaloosa County's Mercedes-Benz plants voted against joining the United Auto Workers union by a margin of 12 percentage points, 56% to 44%.

After a week of open voting on the assembly plant at Vance, and the battery plant in Woodstock, Friday afternoon the unofficial running tally on the UAW's site showed 2,045 "Yes" votes to join the union compared to 2,642 "No" votes.

More: Nick Saban says he's taken no stance on Mercedes union vote, despite ads

Earlier in the day, workers were expecting a close vote, but were optimistic for victory, despite Alabama's long-standing negativity toward unionizing, and despite anti-union rhetoric from Gov. Kay Ivey and others.

Rick Webster, who works on body fit-and-finish, said the Mercedes-Benz union drive wasn't a political issue, and didn't originate from outside.

"This is about the Mercedes workers coming together to negotiate with Mercedes management," Webster said. "We built this. UAW didn't build this."

The UAW did assist, however, budgeting about $40 million for a Southern drive, in a region long known as oblivious if not hostile to unions. Before Alabama, that push saw some success. Last month, nearly three quarters of the workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted to join the UAW. Many experts believed that win marked a change in labor's fortunes in the South, a region that has historically resisted unionization.

The loss deals a setback to the UAW and its aggressive campaign to organize workers at foreign-owned auto plants in the South.

Shawn Fain, president of the UAW, spoke at the Mercedes-Benz worker's union office in Coaling, saying while the outcome was obviously not what they'd wanted, that the plant was a better place for what the workers had accomplished.

He quoted the legendary college basketball coach John Wooden, saying: "Success is never final; failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts."

"Everything these workers have done has provided optimism around the nation," Fain said, addressing "egregious" behavior on the behalf of management. The German government is investigating Mercedes-Benz for the alleged anti-union conduct, following complaints by the UAW.

The results of the election in Alabama were announced Friday afternoon after five days of voting administered by the National Labor Relations Board. More than 5,100 Mercedes workers were eligible to vote.

The UAW, after last year securing a favorable contract for 145,000 for its members at Ford, General Motors and Stellatnis, budgeted $40 million for its work in the South.

After the vote, Webster was resigned, but not down.

"It didn't break our way today. And that is gut-wrenching, but at the end of the day we all have to come together, go in and work together. We still gotta go in and build the cars," he said.

Mercedes-Benz released a statement that read, in part:

"At MBUSI, our primary focus is always to provide a safe and supportive work environment for our team members, so they can build superior vehicles for the world. We look forward to continuing to work directly with our team members to ensure MBUSI is not only their employer of choice, but a place they would recommend to friends and family."

Speaking to Fain's words that the drive had positive results, Webster said among those were:

• The top-out pay increased by $2

• The two-tier wage system was done away with

• And there's been a strong push to make sure workers in assembly shops are not contractors, he added.

"This campaign has forced their hand on a lot of issues," Webster said. "We're going to continue this fight, but it's a waiting game. We can't hold another election for a whole year. We have to wait and see how the company performs."

The UAW's Southern campaign

Car manufacturing has been on the rise in the South over the last 30 years. The Mercedes plant in Vance produced in first car in 1997. Honda, Hyundai and Toyota soon arrived in Alabama. Automakers, both foreign and domestic, have also opened plants in Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and South Carolina.

The automakers were lured to the South by lucrative incentives. Many also welcomed a region where unions were less powerful than in the Midwest.

Nationally, unions today enjoy broad support. In the latest Gallup poll, 67% of Americans said they approve of labor unions.

Union membership, however, has fallen sharply. Today, only 10% of American workers belong to unions, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rate of unionization is lower across the South. In Alabama, 7.5% of workers belong to unions, the second highest rate in the South but still well below the national average.

The UAW has seen its own membership fall, due to the decline of manufacturing in the United States, and corruption among the union's past leadership that damaged its reputation.

Politicians push back against unions

This week, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed SB231, which denies economic incentives to companies that recognize a union without an election. While the bill does not apply to Mercedes, which forced a vote on unionization, it does signal that Ivey, like Republican politicians across the South, strongly opposes unionization.

Before the April vote at VW in Tennessee, Ivey signed a joint statement with five other Southern governors urging workers to reject unions.

"The UAW has come in making big promises to our constituents that they can't deliver on," Ivey and the other governors said in the statement. "And we have serious reservations that the UAW leadership can represent our values."

After the pro-union forces conceded the loss, Ivey issued another statement:

Ivey issued the following statement following the win against the UAW at Mercedes:

“The workers in Vance have spoken, and they have spoken clearly! Alabama is not Michigan, and we are not the Sweet Home to the UAW. We urge the UAW to respect the results of this secret ballot election. I am proud Alabama is home to some of the greatest automakers in the world, and I am grateful to these companies who provide good pay, benefits and opportunities to many men and women across our state. As I have said, automotive manufacturing is one of Alabama’s crown jewel industries and number one in the country, and we are committed to keeping it that way."

After the UAW victory in Tennessee, President Joe Biden issued his own statement that directly addressed the governors.

"Let me be clear to the Republican governors that tried to undermine this vote: There is nothing to fear from American workers using their voice and their legal right to form a union if they so choose," Biden said.

Alabama, like all Southern states, has right-to-work laws, which gives workers at a unionized worksite the option to not pay union dues.

The UAW has also targeted the Hyundai plant in Huntsville. In February, the UAW announced that 30% of the workers at that plant had signed cards to join the union.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tuscaloosa Mercedes-Benz workers reject United Auto Workers union bid