UAW Has Path to Reverse Mercedes Loss Under New Labor Standard

The United Auto Workers can explore a potent new legal strategy to reverse its election defeat at a Mercedes-Benz AG plant and force the German automaker to recognize the union, according to some labor scholars.

The May 17 loss at Mercedes stunned the UAW, which had just landed a major win at a Volkswagen AG plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., where workers voted for the union by a nearly 3 to 1 margin. It disrupted the UAW’s broader push to organize some 150,000 workers at more than a dozen nonunion plants across the nation, many in the South.

In the lead ...