With vote at Alabama plant, UAW challenges South’s antiunion tilt
The first time Rob Lett saw a worker wearing a red union hat at his sprawling Mercedes plant, he thought, “Wow, that takes courage.”
His second thought: “Why doesn’t he get fired?”
Unions have long found the American South to be hostile territory. But Mercedes workers here in central Alabama now hold organized labor’s hopes for this critical region in the palms of their hands.
If the Mercedes workers vote this week to allow the United Auto Workers to represent them, they will become the second foreign-owned auto plant in the South to unionize, giving the UAW important momentum. If they vote no, they will add to a long line of failed efforts to organize America’s most union-resistant region. The voting began on Monday
