Mercedes Workers in Alabama to File for Union Vote This Week, UAW Leader Says

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.”

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