Six weeks ago, a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance looked like the next domino to fall in United Auto Workers’ strategy to unionize auto plants in the Deep South.

After enticing a supermajority of workers to sign union cards and force an election, it seemed only a matter of time before the factory’s 6,000 employees followed Chattanooga’s Volkswagen plant into the UAW.

What happened?

Workers last week at Vance and the company’s Bibb County battery plant voted 2,045 to 2,642 against UAW representation — a margin of 597 votes.

Though the outcome could be challenged, it will probably be at least a year before another vote takes place.

Talking to employees and observers, several factors in that month-and-a-half proved crucial in turning the tide against the union, at least for the time being.

Union organization:

Stephen Silvia, politics and economics professor at American University and author of “The UAW’s Southern Gamble,” has been following the Mercedes union effort for more than 10 years.

Silvia said workers inside the plant organizing the union fight relied heavily on team leaders to convince their team members to support the union.

“This was effective at first, but management then prioritized persuading team members to oppose unionization,” he said.

The strategy made sense.

Team leaders are between management and line employees, with their words carrying a lot of weight. However, there was a potential drawback to labor organizers.

“Team leaders are closer to management than line employees. Many team leaders have aspirations to become supervisors and did not want to jeopardize their relationship with management. As a result, several team leaders who were initially supportive of unionization changed positions and brought many of their teams with them,” Silvia said.

Jeremy Kimbrell, a longtime union organizer working at Mercedes, said the campaign was “hurt pretty bad in this area.”

“It’s risk/reward—there’s a benefit to having team leaders on your side, but it’s a risk because of their proximity to management,” he wrote in Labor Notes.

“Our leaders who were mobile equipment drivers and off-the-line walkers were superstars in our campaign,” he observed.

“However, with an active union-busting campaign, being off the line in any capacity can increase the likelihood of flipping allegiance. The purpose of an anti-union campaign is to introduce fear. Fear of losing the easier job to outsourcing, maybe, or fear of a more senior worker bumping you out of your position. It becomes easier to just accept the status quo, because it could get worse, when you’re made to be afraid by lies and false rumors.”

At the same time, the employees who did not favor a union went to work talking to their co-workers.

Jeff Cheek, who has worked at Mercedes-Benz for 11 years, said “the lack of credible information from the union organizers” played a part. Melissa Howell, another employee, said some were always “no” votes, but they were quiet about it.

“The fight for and against played out on social media and I’m proud of my fellow coworkers for applying common sense to overcome this UAW drive,” Cheek said.

An end to two-tier pay:

In the midst of the union campaign, Mercedes-Benz announced it was eliminating a two-tier pay system that had been the subject of employee ire.

Even employees who intended to vote against the union said the pay situation – which allowed Mercedes to pay employees hired after 2020 at a lower rate than long-time hires – was a sticking point for many.

The company also instituted a $2 an hour raise for some topped out employees.

Kimbrell said the issue gave birth to one of the union’s heavy talking points – “End the Alabama Discount” – with the idea that Mercedes was profiting by paying Alabama workers less than others in its unionized plants.

“I honestly thought the company was so arrogant that they wouldn’t get rid of it, but they did,” Kimbrell said.

“I’m personally guilty of pushing this too specifically, but it was so obvious and easy.”

Cheek agreed, while Howell, 19 years on the job at Mercedes-Benz in Vance, said the raise “got a lot of people’s attention.”

“People who had been there a long time, who hadn’t seen that much of a raise in a long time, it got their attention,” she said. “For some, they’re looking at a significant raise.”

A new CEO:

On April 30, Mercedes-Benz named Federico Kochlowski, the Vance plant’s vice president of operations, as its new president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz U.S. International (MBUSI).

He replaced Michael Göbel, who served in the role since 2019 and navigated the plant through the challenges of the COVID pandemic and the beginning of electric production.

The change came several weeks after the UAW announced a supermajority of workers had signed union cards, but two weeks before the vote.

Silvia said the change allowed some pro-union employees to change their minds, along with promises that the company would do a better job addressing the employees’ long-standing concerns.

Howell said Kochlowski made an immediate impact by walking the factory floor, by himself, talking to individual employees.

“We couldn’t ask for a better CEO at this time,” she said.

“This man was out there for hours and hours. He would stay late to talk to the other shift. He was asking, what makes you so strong to say yes?”

As far as Kimbrell is concerned, tapping Kochlowski allowed the company to change the focus for a crucial section of the workforce, leading to the vote against the UAW.

“Three weeks prior to the election, the company removed our CEO and it led to the ‘give them a chance’ mindset that eventually won the day,” Kimbrell wrote, saying the company employed it as a talking point in anti-union meetings.

“Somewhere in every meeting they made sure to say ‘give the new CEO a chance.’ Then when workers came back to the lines, brainwashed team leaders applied pressure to reinforce the ‘give the CEO a chance’ message.”

Too little, too late:

Silvia said, prior to the election, that UAW’s success in Chattanooga came because the union was able to persuade the German works council to convince VW management not to use many of the most aggressive anti-union tactics.

A works council is an elected body of employees in German law representing employee interests at the workplace and company levels.

Those tactics, such as holding mandatory employee meetings, and sending employees pro-company text and e-mail messages, did show up at Mercedes, he said.

“The Mercedes works council was late in coming to support the unionization drive at Vance. By the time it did, it was too late to influence management,” he said.

The Nick Saban Factor:

Before voting began, More Perfect Union Solidarity, a pro-labor group, began airing commercials featuring quotes made by former Alabama Coach Nick Saban last year, when he spoke on the possibility of college football players creating a union in the era of NIL deals and the transfer portal.

“It never scares me that people are organized,” Saban said in the commercial.

“General Motors and the automotive industry has had unions for a long time, and they’ve survived, fairly well I think. There’s been a lot of businesses that have been successful and worked with unions for many, many years. So I’m not anti-union. Unionize it, make it like the NFL.”

“Alabama workers win with the union,” an announcer read as the commercial closed.

The UAW did not pay for the commercials, but Saban, who owns several Mercedes-Benz dealerships, issued a statement on the eve of voting, saying the comments had been taken out of context and were used without his permission.

More Perfect Union Solidarity countered that the comments were made publicly.

“I do not personally endorse the UAW or its campaign and have asked the UAW to remove any advertisements featuring me from circulation. I encourage all Team Members to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming election,” Saban said, in a statement.

It may be hard to tell exactly what effect Saban’s involvement had at the plant, in the heart of Crimson Tide country, but the anti-union forces used it on social media.

Howell said for some employees, using the quotes reinforced suspicions among employees that the union was not to be trusted.

“There were other things they did that were kind of eye-opening, like, they’re just going to do whatever they want,” she said.

At the same time, Saban’s appearance at the plant prior to the vote at what the company called a ceremony recognizing his coaching career is the subject of an unfair labor practice with the German government, saying Mercedes supervisors attempted to stop union supporters from passing out UAW hats.