DETROIT—Factory workers at Mercedes Benz’s assembly plant in Alabama are moving forward with efforts to join the United Auto Workers (UAW), and they plan to file a petition as soon as this week, a union leader said on Tuesday.
The union’s Region 8 Director Tim Smith said he had been with UAW President Shawn Fain in Alabama two weeks ago talking to Mercedes workers who were getting ready to petition this week for a union election.
“We’re proud of them and they’re going to win also,” Mr. Smith said on Tuesday at a North Carolina rally to kick off contract negotiations with Daimler Truck.
A union spokesman declined to discuss a Mercedes vote timeframe, but the UAW said in late February that a majority of about 6,000 workers at the plant had signed cards to join the union.
“(The company is) pushing back and the politicians are getting involved,” Mr. Fain said at the North Carolina rally, adding that workers were “fed up with getting screwed.”
Mercedes did not respond immediately to the comments by Mr. Smith and Mr. Fain.
Earlier on Tuesday, a Mercedes spokesperson said the company had “a proven record of competitively compensating team members and providing many additional benefits” and that it preferred to maintain direct communication with employees.
Beyond The Detroit Three
Mr. Fain is leading an unprecedented organizing effort for the 88-year-old UAW, endeavoring to unionize more than a dozen automakers, including Tesla, across the United States.The union has failed several times over the last two decades to organize U.S. facilities owned by Volkswagen and Nissan, but Mr. Fain hopes to succeed after reaching new labor deals last fall with the Detroit Three automakers: General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler parent Stellantis.
Mr. Fain, who took on the head job at the UAW a year ago, says this time will be different, citing a more emboldened U.S. labor force that in part fueled the historic wins in Detroit.
A vote at Mercedes would follow a similar push at Volkswagen’s assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where voting on whether to join the UAW is scheduled to end on April 19.
An National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) spokesman said the agency has received several unfair labor practice charges filed by the UAW against Mercedes, but has not yet received a petition for an election at the Alabama plant.
The Mercedes spokesperson said the company had not interfered with or retaliated against any team member seeking union representation.
The union has failed twice before to organize the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee.
