A week after losing hard-fought elections at two Mercedes-Benz plants in Alabama, the United Automobile Workers asked federal officials Friday to order a new vote, saying the German automaker violated labor laws to suppress support for the union .
Mercedes-Benz waged a “relentless anti-union campaign” marked by “wanton lawlessness,” the UAW said in a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board. Among other things, the union said, Mercedes fired four pro-union employees, barred pro-union workers from campaigning and forced employees to watch anti-union videos.
Workers at the Mercedes plants outside Tuscaloosa, which make sport utility vehicles and batteries, voted 56 percent to 44 percent against joining the union. But the labor board can order a new election if, after a hearing, a district manager finds that misconduct by an employer affected the vote, a board spokesman said.
Mercedes denied it had used improper methods to defeat the union. The majority of workers “have indicated that they are not interested in being represented by the UAW,” the company said in a statement Friday.
“Throughout the election, we have cooperated with the NLRB to comply with its guidelines and will continue to do so,” Mercedes said.
The Alabama result capped a string of UAW victories in the South, including convincing a large majority of workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., to vote to join the union and secure major wage increases in a new contract with Daimler Trucks in North Carolina.
Organizing workers in southern states, long hostile to unions, is a high priority for the UAW. The region is attracting a large share of the billions of dollars that companies are investing in electric car and battery plants.
By the same token, elected Southern leaders like Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, have worked to keep unions out, seeing them as a threat to their ability to attract more factories and jobs.
