U.S. Labor Secretary visits Blue Bird facilities following historic union contract

Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su made a stop in Fort Valley on Friday to celebrate Blue Bird bus factory workers’ approving their first union-negotiated labor contract.

Workers approved the contract in May, about a year after they first voted to be represented by the United Steelworkers union.

The contract lasts three years and provides more than 1,500 covered workers with at least a 12% raise, with some of the lowest-paid workers receiving raises of at least 40%. The contract also ensures that the company will contribute to a retirement plan for workers, share profits and improve health and safety in the factory.

The Biden administration kept close tabs on the negotiations because the Blue Bird bus factory is one of the auto manufacturers benefiting from increased funding for the clean energy industry. Su was involved in the contract negotiations, she said during Friday’s event.

The contract’s signing is a major victory for the Biden administration, which has set its sights on investing in union jobs in the South’s growing clean energy industry.

“To the Blue Bird workers, you all did it,” Su said. “Who says workers in the South can’t unionize? They haven’t met all of you.”

Federal government invests in Blue Bird bus factory

The Blue Bird bus factory and warehouse is the largest employer in Fort Valley. Surrounded by rolling hills and peach groves, its low-slung industrial buildings encircled by shiny, new yellow school buses stand out.

It has also stood out to the federal government, which has given it a financial windfall through a slew of federal investments aimed at expanding electric buses. Earlier this month, the factory announced the U.S. Department of Energy is giving it $80 million to convert old diesel bus manufacturing facilities into plants to build electric vehicles. Manufacturers in other states, including Illinois and Pennsylvania, are set to receive money for similar projects.

It isn’t the first time the federal government has made it rain for the factory. In May 2023, Blue Bird announced it would receive around $1 billion from the federal government over five years in the form of contracts to manufacture electric school buses for districts across the nation.

While the investments were a financial lifeline for the school bus company, which had been struggling after demand decreased due to districts going remote during the COVID-19 pandemic, workers worried they wouldn’t see any of the benefits.

The week former Blue Bird CEO Matthew Stevenson told shareholders the news in a quarterly earnings call, workers voted 697-435 to unionize and affiliate with the United Steelworkers.

Union will make waves far beyond Fort Valley

The new contract is not only historic for Blue Bird workers, but marks a big step for labor organizing in the Deep South, a region that has traditionally been unfriendly to such efforts. Every state in the Deep South had union membership rates below the national average of about 10% in 2023, according to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Every state in the South is also a right-to-work state, meaning workers in unionized workplaces can opt out of membership and dues. Critics of right-to-work laws say they weaken union power and make it harder for workers to bargain for fair wages and hours and workplace safety.

The union contract was negotiated in under a year — a major victory, given that companies and unions can take years to reach an agreement. But it didn’t come without struggle.

Shortly after workers voted to unionize, Stevenson resigned as CEO.

USW and employees also claim that management tried to engage in illegal union-busting tactics. Among the claims were that management followed employees to an off-site lunch location where they were meeting organizers and surveilled them, interrogated employees about support for the union, threatened workers with plant closure if they unionized during a mass meeting and threatened to freeze benefits during the bargaining process.

Labor organizers and newly-unionized Blue Bird employees at Friday’s event emphasized their hope that the new contract will inspire other workers around the South to follow their lead in spite of the challenges.

“When workers come together in a union, we win a voice to fight for what we deserve,” said Dee Thomas, an 11-year employee of Blue Bird and a union member. “As a proud member of a union, I am here to say that despite what you may have been told, Georgia is for unions.”

Why is the government so interested in this union?

Su said the federal funding has a dual purpose of boosting union jobs in the South and tackling climate change.

Biden positioned unions as one of the centerpieces of his 2020 campaign and has continued to emphasize unions on the 2024 campaign trail. At times, Biden’s support for climate action has clashed with unions, with the United Auto Workers briefly withholding an endorsement of Biden in May 2023 after it demanded he push for better wages and benefits for workers at EV plants.

As part of increasing support for unions and climate action, Su stepped in to assist negotiations at the Blue Bird factory. She said she spent countless hours meeting with different parties, with the goal of quickly forming a union that met workers’ needs at the plant.

When Blue Bird workers, union organizers and the company announced they had reached an agreement in May, Biden publicly congratulated them. Thomas was even invited to the White House to talk about her organizing efforts with the president.

During her remarks, as she stood among workers and union organizers in the muggy Georgia heat, Su emphasized that this victory shows that these issues can be balanced.

“Fort Valley, cities across this country, Georgia, and states across this country have been battling two crises: the crisis of climate change and the crisis of not having enough good jobs that allow people to live a decent life,” Su said.

This story was originally published July 19, 2024 at 3:00 PM.