Mercedes-Benz Exec Implores Workers Ahead Of Union Vote: ‘Give Me A Chance’
HuffPost
Federico Kochlowski said he doesn't want the plant to unionize. A labor federation says the company is violating an agreement of neutrality.
The top Mercedes-Benz executive in the U.S. had a not-so-subtle message for workers as they headed to the polls this week to vote in a potentially historic union election.
Federico Kochlowski, the new president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, wrote in a letter to employees at the plant in Vance, Alabama, that the election marked “an important decision about how we work together for years to come.”
“And although I respect everyone’s right to take a position on this matter, I prefer that we work on our future together without anyone else between us,” he wrote, according to a copy obtained by HuffPost.
Kochlowski sounded as though he was pleading with employees near the end of the letter, telling them he was “a person of my word.”
“When I tell you I’m going to do something, you can trust that I will do everything in my power to make it happen,” he wrote. “I hope you’ll give me a chance to do what I came here to do.”
