STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And let's stay in the South for this next story, a region that sometimes replaces southern hospitality with southern hostility when it comes to unions. The United Auto Workers is trying to gain a foothold in the South after big wins in the Midwest last year. Here's Stephan Bisaha of Gulf States Newsroom.
STEPHAN BISAHA, BYLINE: Sure, you probably think Detroit when it comes to American cars. But for decades, foreign carmakers like Mercedes and Toyota have been building a booming auto industry in the South. Alabama alone has five massive assembly plants, including one for Hyundai in Montgomery. And when its nearly 4,000 workers go to the break room, this is what they hear on loop.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: We don't need no outside source to come and tell us what to do, like as a union.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: We have to try to make sure we keep these companies here because it feeds our small business.
BISAHA: Keep unions out to protect Alabama's auto jobs. That's the message both inside the plant and repeated outside by politicians and business leaders. And those words are backed up with action, like when the UAW tried to rent a space in Montgomery, Ala., to recruit those Hyundai workers. Organizer Antonia McClain said she got close to leasing one until the owner found out it was for union.
ANTONIA MCCLAIN: And now that building is sitting off of South Boulevard, boarded up. So they'd rather board up their business than allow the UAW to lease the building.
BISAHA: The big concern in the state is that unions and the extra bureaucracy they bring could lead to lost jobs and plants closing. Now, labor and auto industry experts say it's unlikely for a plant to close because of a union. But those fears likely play a part in why Mercedes plant workers in Alabama voted against unionizing in May. One state over, in Tennessee, the UAW has been riding the wave of its wins in the North and proving it's possible to do the same in the South.
(CHEERING)
BISAHA: Volkswagen workers cheered at a union watch party in Chattanooga, Tenn. They had just voted to join the UAW in April, lured by the historic wage and benefit gains the union won for its members. And the union followed it up with another Tennessee win this month, organizing the Ultium battery plant. Frank Allen is one of 1,000 newly minted UAW members who work there. He says the win is a sign of the shifting attitudes toward unions in the South.
FRANK ALLEN: Yeah, it's changing. Definitely. We've got people that are asking questions and want to succeed and want to thrive, you know, not just for us as workers but to have a nice, comfortable family life as well.
BISAHA: Despite those Tennessee wins, unions are still a tough sell in Alabama. Quichelle Liggins is a pro-union worker at the state's Hyundai plant, and when she's trying to recruit her co-workers, she avoids leading with the UAW name.
QUICHELLE LIGGINS: Like, the famous saying is, put it where the goats can get it. I can't talk to them from the UAW standpoint. I have to start with the basics. A union is people coming together and getting their voice heard, negotiating a contract.
BISAHA: And that's what the UAW needs to do to spread its wins beyond Tennessee, negotiate strong contracts for its new members, the kind of contracts with pay and benefits that can make other Southern workers jealous enough to want their own union.
For NPR News, I'm Stephan Bisaha in Birmingham, Ala.
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