(Updates throughout with company confirmation)
DETROIT, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The United Auto Workers union has won the right to represent more than 3,000 hourly workers at two Freightliner LLC plants in North Carolina, the company said on Thursday.
Chris Brandt, a spokesman for the U.S. commercial truck unit of DaimlerChrysler , said the UAW won the right to organize the plants, in Cleveland and Gastonia, North Carolina, in so-called "card check" votes that got under way in mid-January.
Results of the votes were verified and reported to the company by federal labor officials on Wednesday, Brandt said.
"Freightliner has agreed to the UAW as the exclusive representative," Brandt told Reuters.
UAW spokesmen declined immediate comment on the outcome of the votes, in which workers favoring UAW representation simply sign a card confirming their wish to join the union.
But Freightliner's nonunion U.S. plants have long been a source of contention between DaimlerChrysler and the Detroit-based union, and organizing them has been one of its priorities in relations with the German-American automaker.
Freightliner operates seven major manufacturing plants in the United States, where its total work force is 13,000 strong, and four of them will now be represented by the UAW or another trade union, Brandt said.
He noted that one other Freightliner plant in North Carolina, a facility located in Mount Holly, has been represented by the UAW for more than a decade.
It was not immediately clear when the UAW would seek to begin contract negotiations over the Cleveland and Gastonia plants.
But Brandt, who declined to comment on possible rising labor costs for Freightliner, said the negotiations were not seen as posing a major hurdle.
"We intend to bargain in good faith with the UAW," he said.