More than 5,000 Mercedes-Benz workers in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, will vote on May 13 through 17 on whether to join the United Auto Workers, and German activist unions are pressuring them to get on board.
The Alabama and South Carolina plants are the only Mercedes plants in the world not to be unionized, and IG Metall, the powerful German labor union, is trying to change that—even if it means not playing fair.
“We encourage our colleagues in Tuscaloosa to make history by exercising their right to vote and voting to form a union,” said Ergun Lümali, union representative at IG Metall and chairman of the Mercedes-Benz Works Council, a worker group that coordinates with the union. “We are closely monitoring the UAW’s activities and company conduct in Tuscaloosa.”
Lümali said that after successfully voting for the UAW, Tuscaloosa would become a “full member…
