The UAW strike begins and UAW President Shawn Fain talks to picketing workers at Ford-owned Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan the night of September 14, 2023. (photo: Anna Liz Nichols)
United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain used biblical imagery to characterize the vote by Mercedes-Benz workers in Alabama against joining the union .
“This is a David and Goliath fight. Sometimes Goliath wins a battle. But David wins the war,” said Fain, someone who has spent decades slinging figurative stones in defense of the union movement. “… The UAW will continue to lead the fight against corporate greed and runaway inequality. And through that fight we’ll change the nation and the world for the better. While this loss stings, these workers keep their heads held high.We fight the good fight and continue forward.”
While the failure to win over Mercedes-Benz workers in the May vote was a setback to the UAW’s organizing efforts, it did come just a month after the union won the right to represent approximately 4,330 workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn.— marking the first time that southern autoworkers at a foreign car company had done so.