If you want to understand the state of labor in America today, take a drive through Alabama. Not a long drive. Just a 25-mile stretch of I-20, between Tuscaloosa and Birmingham. Here, union hopes have been raised, dashed and dragged out over years. This is the Deep South, after all, where anti-union attitudes are enshrined in state constitutions.
It's the latest expression of deep worker dissatisfaction in a part of the state that's home to two other fiercely-fought labor disputes, all situated right off the same highway. Inside the seven-million-square-foot Mercedes plant in Vance, Ala., the journey to this dramatic juncture has been neither straight nor smooth.
When Ryan first got to Mercedes as a temporary employee 10 years ago, he remembers a coworker handing him a pro-union flier in the lobby. 'I read it and ended up throwing it away before I got to my team room,' Ryan says. 'I didn't want to be seen with a flier.' He feared it would jeopardize his future at the company.
#labor-disputes #unionization-efforts #worker-dissatisfaction #anti-union-attitudes #alabama-labor-landscape
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