Mercedes Is Threatening America’s Middle Class

Few countries have benefited as much from the post-war liberal international order as Germany. Especially post-reunification, Germany’s unique blend of low defense spending, reliance on imported energy, and an export-based manufacturing sector is premised on the assumption of continued free trade and security—a status quo made possible by the United States and its commitment to upholding that post-war liberal international order, from allowing domestic market access to safeguarding global sea lanes.

This is the underlying material reality for why Germany is concerned not only by the impending second Trump term, but also the broader bipartisan turn toward protectionism and industrial policy in the United States. Germany’s alarmed response to the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act and its profound unease over the prospect of having to choose between the United States and China have laid bare how unprepared it is for a 21st century in which geopolitical concerns and the public sector writ large reassert their authority over free markets and global trade.

Given Germany’s extreme geopolitical vulnerability and dependence on the United States, it’s hard to believe that a German company would dare to violate the basic labor rights of U.S. workers on U.S. soil. Yet that is precisely what happened at the Mercedes plant in Alabama, where a historic unionization drive by United Auto Workers (UAW) narrowly fell short amid a fierce anti-union campaign by the German auto company. The UAW has filed several unfair labor practice charges against Mercedes with the National Labor Relations Board asking for a new union election to be held, citing Mercedes’s captive audience meetings and even the firing of pro-union workers.

Unionization campaigns usually unfold far from the radar of foreign policymakers. Many committed transatlanticists in Washington likely have more social interaction with German diplomats and corporate executives than with labor organizers battling steep odds to unionize the American South.

Yet the foreign-policy implications of Mercedes’s union busting are hard to ignore. German companies’ union busting on U.S. soil seems like an example of the worst aspects many Americans see in the post-war international order, namely that it’s designed for the benefit of foreign corporations at the expense of U.S. workers. If U.S. workers and voters don’t feel they have anything to show for the economic globalization that’s underwritten by U.S. defense spending, why would they vote to continue such policies?

To be sure, it’s not fair to pin Mercedes’s union-busting tactics solely on Germany. It’s Alabama’s own anti-labor policies that present the primary obstacle to unionization. Amid the UAW’s organizing campaign at Mercedes, the Republican governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas issued a joint statement opposing unionization, calling the UAW “socialists” and warning that “every single time a foreign automaker plant has been unionized; not one of those plants remains in operation.”

Yet, without excusing the actions of these governors, it’s fair to ask: Why are German auto companies in the South in the first place? The business strategy behind the factory locations of Mercedes, BMW, and Volkswagen in the United States are clearly aimed at profiting from lower wages that result from the suppression of U.S. labor.

To take the macro view: The victors of World War II extended market access to defeated German companies, which then took advantage of this fact to move production to Southern right-to-work states, pursue lower labor costs, and have a competitive edge against U.S. car companies in the industrial Midwest and their highly unionized workforces.

In Mercedes’s case, it openly aligned with reactionary state leaders to suppress Southern workers’ desire for a union. It’s no coincidence that the governors who issued the statement opposing the UAW’s arrival in the South are many of the same governors who have pursued a broader antidemocratic strategy that’s focused on suppressing the votes of working class Americans, particularly those of Black and Latino heritage. Germans concerned about democratic backsliding in the United States should look in the mirror and examine the role their own companies’ desire to union bust has played in the United States’ democratic crisis.

This is all the more ironic given Germany’s own strong labor tradition, which is also experiencing a moment of revitalization much like the labor movement in the United States. Germany’s strong trade union movement has already benefited U.S. auto workers in their fight for fair wages and a union contract at German companies. UAW President Shawn Fain has said that pressure from German unions convinced Volkswagen to bar Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee from coming onto the factory floor in Chattanooga to campaign against the union. The UAW went on to win at Volkswagen Chattanooga, creating the biggest victory for labor in the American South in decades. Negotiations for the first UAW contract at Volkswagen Chattanooga began in September.

The gains made by U.S. workers, with the assistance of German workers’ solidarity, suggests significant room for strengthening the transatlantic alliance on a people-to-people basis (specifically, a worker-to-worker basis). Increased dialogue between unions on both sides of the Atlantic is as essential as the more common transatlantic contacts made by highly educated business and political elites in both countries. German policymakers, particularly from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and others on the left, should seek stronger ties with U.S. unions by finding ways to be practically useful to them. Assisting U.S. auto workers in their fight for a union would also demonstrate that German foreign policy is independent from the German auto industry—a very pointed question in the transatlantic alliance these days.

The UAW has already given German leaders multiple opportunities to demonstrate solidarity with U.S. auto workers. The UAW filed a lawsuit against Mercedes in German courts, based on Germany’s new global supply chain law. It has sent delegations to Germany, most recently to address union busting at Detroit-area Webasto plants. And, of course, the ongoing negotiations with Volkswagen for a contract are a high-stakes publicity moment in Germany’s business relationship with U.S. labor. All of these have been opportunities for the German government—which hasn’t been shy about weighing in on the U.S. presidential election through official channels—to weigh in on the UAW’s side in its legal fight with Mercedes or in its contract bargaining with Volkswagen. A statement of solidarity from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz with the UAW would not only perfectly complement U.S. President Joe Biden’s own historic stand on the UAW picket line, it would be a unique opportunity for Germany to engage in direct diplomacy with U.S. workers.

The UAW drive to unionize the big foreign automakers, who make up a greater share of U.S.-based auto manufacturing than U.S. companies, is a critical test of whether the current international order and globalized economy can be made to share its gains with U.S. workers. It’s interesting to note that the foreign auto companies being organized on U.S. soil by the UAW are German, Japanese, and South Korean—all countries that rely on the U.S. security umbrella. This is already an issue that has been raised in the transatlantic relationship—U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has reportedly already reached out to German counterparts on the UAW’s behalf, another reflection of the Biden-Harris administration’s strong commitment to organized labor.

The United States using its enormous foreign-policy leverage to advance the cause of workers at home should have been the cornerstone of what the Biden-Harris administration calls its foreign policy for the middle class. Unions are a critical source of U.S. domestic strength and ensure the gains created by the international order that the U.S. defends are more fairly distributed among the American people.

Of course, the incoming Trump administration represents a significant threat to the interests of organized labor. President-elect Trump has taken particular issue with the leadership of the UAW, which strongly supported Harris in the most recent election. Recent gains by organized labor, such as a recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board to ban anti-union captive audience meetings of the kind Mercedes conducted, are likely to be undone by the incoming administration. Such a move would ironically see the “America First” candidate side with a German corporation over American workers. Germans who oppose Trump might want to reflect on what side their government should be on in such a situation.

Still, even the Republican Party has begun to make noise about adopting a more pro-labor approach, notably among the most “America First” aligned elements of the party. Vice President elect J.D. Vance even stood on a UAW picket line in his home state of Ohio, though he insisted it was his “first time”. The government in Germany, as well as in Japan and South Korea, would be wise to get ahead of this trend by putting their own pressure on their auto companies to respect their U.S. workers’ labor rights and stay neutral amid the UAW’s organizing drives. This would be far healthier for the transatlantic alliance than continuing to allow German companies to pursue maximum profits at the expense of U.S. workers and in alliance with the most reactionary political forces in the United States.

For U.S. allies like Germany and Japan, who are concerned with keeping the United States engaged in the world, making sure companies like Mercedes aren’t perpetuating the very inequalities undermining Americans’ confidence in their traditional global commitments would be a good start. Unions are essential guardrails of democracy, and U.S. democracy needs such guardrails now more than ever. Some 80 years after the United States’ victory in WWII helped usher in democratic constitutions that enshrined labor rights in Germany, it would be tragically ironic if German companies were allowed to crush Americans’ democratic labor rights at home.