Alabama House Majority Leader Scott Stassagen said the recent bill would effectively keep the interests of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and other large labor unions out of Alabama because employees would be able to vote by secret ballot without coercion or fear of retaliation.

Earlier this month, the UAW suffered a decisive defeat in a vote by workers at a Mercedes-Benz manufacturing plant in Alabama. On Thursday, Stadthagen (R-Hartselle) discussed the bill on FM Talk 106.5's “The Jeff Poor Show.”

“We are offering incentives to bring high-paying jobs to Alabama, every state does,” Stadthagen said. “In fact, I think this bill is about keeping the UAW out of Alabama.”

“If you're getting an incentive from the state and the UAW doesn't step in and give employees the opportunity to vote privately, you lose the incentive that the state provided,” Stadthagen explained. “Employers have no problem giving employees that opportunity, they just need guidelines to follow to be able to do that.”

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Mercedes workers recently voted down the UAW's demands to unionize, a defeat that surprised many experts, but not Stadthagen.

“I actually think they got a lot more votes than they should have,” Stadthagen said. “If you look at the UAW's track record and what they've done to states and communities, you'll see they've destroyed communities. The only people who benefit from their involvement are themselves, and that's it.”

“They make empty promises to their employees and never deliver on them,” he continued. “Once the employees realize how this is going to end, they're going to continue to put them down. And they're going to say Alabama is not going to benefit us because that's all they're worried about. And they're going to go somewhere else.”

Staathagen also mentioned a small flashpoint in the UAW movement that has sparked major frustration from some of the state's largest educational institutions, including the University of Alabama, Auburn University and even Nick Saban himself.

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“When the results came out, the U.A.W. immediately “He came home wearing an Alabama shirt and coach Nick Saban warned him, 'Don't use our logo for your own gain,' and of course they just didn't listen and didn't care. They carried on doing what they wanted,” Stathagen said.

“We keep messaging our employees and letting them know, 'This is who they are, this is what they want to do, this is their track record.' When we run for office, we're accountable for our vote and what we do in the community in our district. And this is the same thing. Anytime you're voting on something, especially something that affects families that are putting a house on the table and food on the table, you have to show them what this organization really is and what it does.”

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