In Georgia, 1,400 Bus Manufacturing Workers Have Just Won a Union
Electric vehicle manufacturing in the US is overwhelming nonunion, but 1,400 workers for an electric bus manufacturer in Georgia have just unionized. It’s one of the labor movement’s biggest victories in the South this century.
A diesel school bus being converted into an electric school bus. (Gabby Jones / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
After a bruising three-year fight, workers at school bus manufacturer Blue Bird in Fort Valley, Georgia, voted May 12 to join United Steelworkers (USW) Local 697.
“It’s been a long time since a manufacturing site with fourteen hundred people has been organized, let alone organized in the South, let alone organized with predominantly African American workers, and let alone in the auto industry,” said Maria Somma, organizing director with the USW. “It’s not a single important win. It’s an example of what’s possible — workers wanting to organize and us being able to take advantage of a time and a policy that allowed them to clear a path to do so.” The high-turnout vote was 697 to 435.
At two factories and a warehouse near Macon, the workers build school buses and an array of specialty buses. Blue Bird is the second-largest bus manufacturer in the country, after Daimler Truck’s Thomas Built Buses. The United Auto Workers (UAW) represent workers at a Thomas Built facility in North Carolina.
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