Daimler Truck Vote Extends UAW’s Southern Win Streak

With a key vote at a big Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama looming, the UAW is touting a tentative contract for 7,400 workers at Daimler Truck plants in three southern states that includes a 25% pay increase, cost-of-living protection and, for the first time ever, profit sharing for all employees.

Union President Shawn Fain says the tentative agreement is a “major victory for the members who build Freightliner and Western Star trucks and Thomas Built buses.”  

The last-minute settlement averts what seemed like an almost certain walkout by the UAW, which campaigned for almost two months prior to the expiration of the old contract to prepare the employees of Daimler Truck North America to set up picket lines in Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina.

Employees will begin to vote on the tentative contract at Daimler Truck this week, according to the UAW.

Daimler Truck and Mercedes-Benz were part of the same German enterprise for the better part of a century but separated in 2021 and now operate independently save for sharing some research on electric and autonomous vehicles.

However, the union’s success in negotiating a new four-year contract is certain to have an impact among the 5,000 employees at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama who will vote May 13-17 on whether they want to be represented by the UAW.

It is also likely to influence the union’s future contract negotiations with Volkswagen of America where employees at VOA’s plant in Chattanooga, TN, recently voted for union representation, opening the door for discussions on a new labor pact.

“It’s impossible to overstate what a big deal the UAW’s victory in Tennessee is. This is a direct challenge to the entire racialized economic system of the South. Keeping the South union-free was a core piece of Jim Crow, because unions bring working people together across race,” says Andrew Wolf, an assistant professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial & Labor Relations

“The South continues to maintain ‘the southern discount’ which is lower wages resulting from right-to-work laws and intense government and employer opposition to unions, the effects of which have downward pressure on wages everywhere.

 “Increasing labor’s presence in the South going forward could be a rising tide that lifts all boats for workers,” says Wolf.

During a Facebook Live appearance like those he used during last fall’s Stand-Up Strike against Detroit’s automakers, Fain (pictured, below) says the tentative contract with Daimler will end the multi-tiered wage schedule in all three plants. The multi-tiered pay system is an issue in the campaign at the Mercedes-Benz plant, according to observers.

The proposed Daimler contract will boost the lowest-paid workers’ salaries by up to $8 per hour, according to Fain, who adds the contract, if ratified, would provide minimum 25% general wage increases over four years.

“When this deal is ratified, you’ll get a 10% raise. Six months later, another 3%. Six months after that, another 3%. That’s a 16% raise in the first year of the deal, alone,” the UAW president says.

Fain adds the lowest-paid workers at Thomas Built Bus (TBB) will see raises of over $8 an hour. Some skilled-trades members will get raises of more than 60%, or over $17 an hour.

“We said we needed protection against inflation, so workers aren’t left behind. And we won COLA – cost-of-living for the first time in Daimler history,” Fain notes.

“We said the company doesn’t get to keep all the profits while the workers who build the product get crumbs. So, we won profit-sharing for the first time in Daimler history, to get our share of that so-called leftover money from their ‘red hot’ profits,” he says.  

Fain also says TBB made some important concessions on work schedules. “We said the company shouldn’t be able to ship work overseas on a whim. And we won increased job security and increased the build rates. This guarantees a certain minimum number of vehicles will be built at each plant, so workers can know their work will be there tomorrow,” he says.  

Daimler says it is satisfied with the agreement, which averted a potential strike at the company’s manufacturing plants.

“Daimler Truck North America and the United Auto Workers have tentatively agreed to new collective bargaining agreements covering approximately 7,400 employees at our manufacturing and component facilities in High Point, NC (TBB), Mount Holly Truck Manufacturing Plant, Cleveland Truck Manufacturing Plant, Gastonia Parts Plant, Atlanta Parts Distribution Center and Memphis Parts Distribution Center,” the company says in a statement.