(Fixes media identifier)
By Nora Eckert
CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (Reuters) – The United Auto Workers has made history by winning its first unionization vote at an auto factory in the southern United States. Now he needs to prove that success was no fluke by taking a second victory at a Mercedes plant in Alabama next month.
UAW representatives at the VW plant will also have to prove themselves by negotiating a contract that gives workers what they have fought for: better benefits, greater job security, and greater work-life balance.
Volkswagen's (ETR:) landslide victory in Tennessee is expected to provide a crucial boost to UAW President Shawn Fain's $40 million campaign to expand the union outside of Detroit into the U.S. South and West. US, focusing on 13 non-union auto companies, including toyota (NYSE:) and Tesla (NASDAQ:).
Fain, a feisty leader who reveled in last year's fight with Detroit companies that got double-digit raises and cost-of-living adjustments, told a group of VW workers that the union would take the fight to Mercedes. “Let's win more for working people across this nation,” he said.
The Mercedes plant vote, scheduled for mid-May, is expected to be a tougher fight than VW, which took a neutral position in the vote.
Mercedes has said it respects workers' right to organize and wants them to make an informed decision. But in a letter to employees in January, she said union organizers “cannot guarantee you anything” and that some workers had said no to unionizing because of Mercedes' competitive wages and benefits. “Mercedes is running a much more aggressive anti-union campaign than Volkswagen inside the plant,” said John Logan, a labor professor at San Francisco State University.
But he added that VW's big victory, in which 73% of eligible workers voted in favor, will provide a significant boost to organizing efforts at other plants in the South.
“This will give them a big boost for the Mercedes vote, and if they win too, I wouldn't be surprised to see elections in Hyundai (OTC:), sling (NYSE:) and Toyota over the next few months,” he said.
The UAW says a “supermajority” of the roughly 5,200 eligible workers at the Mercedes assembly plant in Vance, Alabama, and a nearby battery plant in Woodstock support it. The UAW's policy is to push for a vote once 70% of workers have signed their union cards.
Much may depend on the economy and perceptions about job security. In the traditionally anti-union South, where the UAW has lost several fights in the past, six Republican governors have strongly opposed the union's current campaign, describing it as a risk to job security as automakers face higher labor costs. .
Before last fall's UAW labor talks with the three Detroit automakers, Ford (NYSE:) officials said their U.S. labor costs were $64 an hour, compared with an estimate of $55. for foreign automakers and between $45 and $50 for electric vehicle leader Tesla.
Workers at two other plants in the southern United States (a Hyundai plant in Alabama and a Toyota parts factory in Missouri) have also launched unionization drives, with 30% of employees signing cards saying they support the UAW. .
VW plant workers say they will start meetings on Sunday to strategize contract negotiations.
“The real fight is getting your fair share,” Fain told VW workers Friday night.
Jeremy Bowman, a VW worker who hopes to join the plant's organizing committee, agreed. “The fight is just beginning,” he said.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
