Union members Saturday afternoon turned out at Hoover’s Brock’s Gap Brewing Co. to show support for the United Auto Workers ahead of next week’s election at Mercedes-Benz U.S. International in Vance.

More Perfect Union Solidarity, an organization supporting labor, staged the gathering, where people enjoyed live music, barbecue and the afternoon air as they shouted union slogans.

About 250 people came, and they briefly heard Austin Brooks of Centreville’s first performance. Brooks, 20, has worked for two years at Mercedes’ electric battery plant in Bibb County, and he sang “Folsom Prison Blues” with the band.

Here is full coverage of the effort to unionize the Vance Mercedes plant

“I’ll bet there’s rich folks eating in a fancy dining car,” he sang, the lyrics, for a moment, evoking the great labor folk songs of the previous century. He admitted nervousness before attempting the Johnny Cash classic, but he segued quickly after into a speech telling of his time at Mercedes and his support for the UAW.

“The only one who’ll look after you in a boardroom is you,” Brooks said. “At least with a union, we have someone else looking after us.”

Workers at the Vance factory are scheduled to begin voting next week on whether they will be represented by the UAW. Vote totals are expected Friday.

Union supporters are pointing to the election as a possible turning point for organized labor, not only in Alabama but the Deep South. Approximately 70 percent of the plant’s 6,000 workers have signed union cards, though some Mercedes employees say they do not trust the UAW to improve conditions on their jobs.

Joe Cleveland, with the International Association of Machinists Local 291 in Anniston, told the crowd a vote to join the UAW would improve the lot of workers across Alabama.

“When there’s more union workers, wages, working conditions and benefits improve across the board for everybody,” he said. “It improves for future generations of workers. It’s a hard fight to win the organizing drive, and it’s a hard fight to get the first contract, but it’s going to make it better for future workers and for your kids.”

Brooks said he first became aware of the union drive at Mercedes around the first of the year, but did not initially support it. His mind changed after he began reading on the history of organized labor in America, he said.

“It started as just a whisper in a corner, keeping it real hush-hush,” he said. “I’ve always been a history nerd. So I Iooked at it. Unions helped steel mills, lumber mills. I looked at the stuff (the companies in previous union fights) were doing, and I thought, they’re doing the same thing to us now.”