LaborNotes reports that in its last-ditch effort to bust the Union, Mercedes has called in divine intervention from beyond the plant walls in the form of a video message from Reverend Matthew Wilson, a Pastor of the Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Marion, Alabama - and a City Councilperson for Tuscaloosa.  “This is a strategy as old as Unions,” said Kate Bronfenbrenner, who serves as Director of Labor Education Research at the Cornell University School of Industrial Labor Relations. “Particularly in towns dominated by a very large corporation, companies give enough money to churches to purchase their long-term loyalty and rely on the church leaders to preach an Anti-Union message.”  The Union Election at Mercedes follows on the heels of a landmark Union victory at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where 4,300 Workers voted to join the United Auto Workers - the first Auto Plant Election the Union has won in the South since the 1940s.

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