Voting begins today at Mercedes-Benz’s Vance automotive plant as its 6,000 employees choose whether to make it the first vehicle factory in Alabama represented by the United Auto Workers.

Vote totals are expected to be available Friday in the historic election that follows a whirlwind five months as union organizers signed up a majority of workers at the factory, which has been long resistant to union activity.

Mercedes-Benz was the first auto plant to locate in the state more than 30 years ago, and has powered Alabama’s ascent to becoming the No. 1 automotive exporting state in the U.S.

Just 10 years ago, in 2014, the UAW called off an unsuccessful union campaign at the plant, acting on the request of workers.

Here is full coverage of the fight over unionizing the Vance plant

Now, the UAW hopes to continue the momentum it built following last month’s successful union vote at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant, and its “Stand Up” strike last year against the Big Three of the U.S. automotive industry.

How did a once-daunting goal for the union grow within reach in less than a year?

Workers inside the plant, and long-time observers, say it was a shift from top-down organizing to signing up employees on the floor. That probably allowed the plain to shift quickly in favor of the union.

What will it mean – for Mercedes, for Alabama and for the national labor movement – if workers vote to join the UAW?

“It would show workers across all different industries that they can stand up together and fight for more,” said Haeden Wright, a senior organizer for Jobs to Move America.

“We in Alabama have been painted as an exploitable workforce. (Car companies) think they can come here and get massive incentives with the promise of cheap labor. This is letting people know their work is worth more than that and they can do something about it. That’s powerful.”

Which side will win?

Stephen Silvia is a professor in the department of politics, governance and economics at American University.

He’s also the author of “The UAW’s Southern Gamble,” which looked into the union’s attempt to organize in the South since 1989. Until April, it was a story of persistent failure in deeply red, right-to-work states.

Silvia said the UAW targeted three auto plants in the South – Mercedes being one – for union organizing.

Volkswagen narrowly voted down the union in Chattanooga in 2014 and 2019, while a Mississippi Nissan plant also voted it down. This weeks’ vote at Mercedes will be the factory’s first.

“I’m not sure what the outcome is going to be,” Silvia said of the vote at the Vance plant, which also includes the Mercedes electric battery plant in nearby Bibb County.

“It was pretty clear the UAW was going to win in Chattanooga. The oppositional side was not as well-organized. The traditional opponents in business and government spoke up, but it wasn’t nearly the way it had been in the past.”

The vote comes as the number of union members in Alabama is growing, although it still lags behind other states.

In 2023, 156,000 Alabama workers were union members — up from 149,000 a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Still, only 7.5% of the state’s workers belonged to a union as of 2023, according to the BLS.

Alabama officials attack union as ‘corrupt, shifty’

As in other Southern, Republican-led states targeted by the UAW efforts, Alabama government and business leaders have been deeply critical of the effort to union the Vance plant.

Gov. Kay Ivey called the union a “looming threat” to Alabama’s economy, “corrupt, shifty and a dangerous leech.”

Ivey also joined governors of five other Southern states in a statement blasting the UAW’s efforts. Other leaders have referred to the union as an outside force between employees and the company.

The legislature this session passed a bill that would withhold economic incentives from companies that voluntarily recognize unions or do not hold secret ballots in union elections.

The bill, which would require companies that violate its terms to pay back economic incentives received before Jan. 1, 2025, was still awaiting Ivey’s signature as of last week.

Pro-union workers at Mercedes have said the state’s rhetoric has not changed their mind.

“That’s an attack on myself and all the workers who are organizing,” Wright said. “This is their state. They’re Alabamians, and they’re making a choice. The union didn’t tell them that they had to join.”

Mercedes-Benz, for its part, has made public statements that it respects its employees right to choose whether to join a union, and has denied allegations made by the UAW that it had interfered with or retaliated against any employee over union activity.

Last month, the automaker said it looks forward “to participating in the election process to ensure every Team Member has a chance to cast their own secret-ballot vote, as well as having access to the information necessary to make an informed choice.”

But former CEO Michael Göbel was recorded telling workers he didn’t believe “the UAW can help us to be better.”

Göbel was replaced last month by the company.

What do pro-union workers want?

Wright said many workers interested in unions are not necessary seeking only higher wages.

“A lot of it is work-life balance, and safety, and insurance,” she said. “It’s about quality of life and having what you need to live. You can have a well-paying job and it still not be a good job, or a safe job.”

Austin Brooks, an employee at the company’s battery plant for the past two years, said he was swayed toward the union, in part, by the response of the company to the union fight. He also said concerns about medical bills swayed him.

“I basically have no immune system,” he said. “I’m on two or three allergy meds a day. My medical expenses are covered, but most of it is coming out of my pocket. Mercedes is a billion dollar company.”

Brooks also said one talking point making the rounds at the plant is to “see what happens with Volkswagen” in a year’s time and then decide if you still want a union. He said the union’s approach has been different.

“UAW never grabbed me and said vote yes,” he said. “They said, do your research and see if you want to vote. If you don’t want to, there’s no bad feelings. Stand up for what you think.”

Silvia said he feels Mercedes is “pretty determined” to stop the union drive. It should be noted that Mercedes employees in Germany are covered by a union contract, have representatives on the company’s board, and elect members to a works council.

“The biggest contrast between these two elections, at Chattanooga and Vance, will be what happens if an employer doesn’t come out hard against a union, and what happens if they come out against unionization,” Silvia said.

Among complaints of pro-union employees has been two-tier pay in recent years, something Mercedes has told employees it would end. The issue was one used by the union to illustrate the need for collective bargaining.

“Compensation at Mercedes went from being above the others to shifting downward,” Silvia said. “If you didn’t have anything to begin with, it doesn’t tick you off as much as if you had it and it’s taken away from you.”

What happens after the vote?

If the UAW wins the election, it will be another victory it can use as it continues a $40 million campaign to organize in auto plants, particularly the South. Earlier this year, the union announced 30% of workers at Hyundai in Montgomery had signed union cards.

It would also continue momentum for organized labor in general, which has seen landmark – though still unresolved – union elections at Amazon’s Bessemer facility, and the longest strike in Alabama history at Warrior Met Coal.

What the vote could portend beyond Alabama probably won’t mean much to the employees at Mercedes-Benz, Silvia said.

“I think, ultimately, the most important thing for these folks is what is happening locally,” he said.

“What do their friends in the plant say, what do their relatives say? If the employees at Chattanooga had voted against the union, it would have been a blow to this campaign, but it certainly would not have determined it.”