Unions double-down in the Deep South: Can Alabama pave the way?
VANCE, Ala. — If you want to understand the state of labor in America today, take a drive through Alabama.
Not a long drive. Just a 25-mile stretch of I-20, between Tuscaloosa and Birmingham. Here, union hopes have been raised, dashed and dragged out over years.
This is the Deep South, after all, where anti-union attitudes are enshrined in state constitutions.
A major test of those attitudes comes in a week, when more than 5,000 workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant will begin voting on whether to join the United Auto Workers union. It's the latest expression of deep worker dissatisfaction in a part of the state that's home to two other fiercely-fought labor disputes, all situated right off the same highway.
Stop #1: Mercedes-Benz
Inside the seven-million-square-foot Mercedes plant in Vance, Ala., the journey to this dramatic juncture has been neither straight nor smooth.
You hear it in the story of Jacob Ryan.
When Ryan first got to Mercedes as a temporary employee 10 years ago, he remembers a coworker handing him
