Alabama Mercedes-Benz Employees Declined to Unionize. The UAW May Win Anyway

T he United Auto Workers may get the last laugh.

That’s the sad truth after Mercedes-Benz employees in Alabama rejected the union on May 17. The defeat was resounding: Fifty-six percent voted against unionization, while just 44 percent supported it. Yet the UAW is already trying to overturn the vote and disenfranchise the workers, and a recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board may force unionization on workers like those who just rejected it in a democratic election.

The threat to workplace democracy is made worse by the NLRB’s decision last August in the Cemex case. Led by Joe Biden appointees — especially Chairwoman Lauren McFerran — the board unliterally gave unions a way to ignore election outcomes they don’t like. They simply have to convince the NLRB that an employer committed an “unfair labor practice.” The board can then dismiss the election and recognize the union via a process known as card check. The current NLRB is extremely partisan, so when unions claim that employers broke the law, the board is likely to agree in a kangaroo court.

The NLRB has turned workplace elections upside down, potentially making them nothing more than a head fake for workers. Previously, if the board found evidence of serious illegal activity, it almost always required another election. That gave workers the protection and privacy of the secret ballot, letting them speak without fear of intimidation or reprisal. But now, the NLRB could allow unions to say, “You voted no, but we’re going to bargain for you anyway.”

This is a double injustice because card check isn’t a good gauge of workers’ true wishes. Put simply, card check denies workers the ability to make an informed decision on unionization. It also allows unions to publicly pressure them into joining. Union organizers are infamous for threatening workers in the card-check process, even showing up at their homes. When card check prevails, there’s a far greater likelihood that it doesn’t reflect workers’ wishes.

The Alabama election is proof. Before the secret-ballot vote, the UAW convinced about 70 percent of Mercedes-Benz workers to sign cards supporting unionization. Many of them may have signed simply to get the UAW off their doorstep or before they had full information. But when those same workers were able to vote in private, that pro-union supermajority shrank by more than a third, becoming a minority.

The Cemex decision means the NLRB could invalidate elections in favor of the initial card check. On May 24, a week after the election, the union asked the NLRB to invalidate the results on the grounds that Mercedes-Benz allegedly engaged in illegal activity. While the UAW says it wants a new election, thanks to Cemex, the NLRB has the power to overturn elections like those in Alabama and unionize workers anyway.

It remains to be seen what will happen. But other unionization attempts show how the NLRB may let unions run roughshod over workers. The UAW’s allegations against Mercedes-Benz are similar to those made by another union against a New York City restaurant. In that case, the NLRB is moving to force representation on those restaurant workers even though they rejected it during an election.

That shows the union game plan in action — a game plan that either by election or card check will disenfranchise the thousands of Alabama autoworkers that voted no.

Unions defend this anti-democratic system as a necessary response to corporate shenanigans, but that claim ignores how the deck is stacked in unions’ favor. Unions have an incentive to allege illegal activity regardless of whether it happened, and under the Biden administration, the NLRB is much more inclined to agree with unions. The Cemex decision itself is proof of the board’s union bias. The NLRB is run by people appointed by the self-described “most pro-union president ever.” Lo and behold, they make pro-union decisions.

The Alabama autoworkers should be terrified. They couldn’t have been clearer in their rejection of the UAW. Now they need their victory — and their rights — defended. The next president who isn’t Joe Biden has the ability to clean house at the NLRB when terms come up for renewal, starting with Chairwoman McFerran. That’s crucial to repealing the biased policies, like Cemex, that favor unions at workers’ expense. In Alabama and at every workplace nationwide, unions shouldn’t get the last laugh, because workers deserve the final word.