The leaders of six southern states are seeking to stand athwart the United Auto Workers’ big unionization drive in southern factories. The Republican governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas together wrote a joint statement decrying the UAW’s push to represent workers deep in right-to-work territory.
“As governors, we have a responsibility to our constituents to speak up when we see special interests looking to come into our state and threaten our jobs and the values we live by,” they wrote. This year, workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama and a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee have sought UAW representations, and both facilities will be holding votes this week to confirm those wishes.
The UAW has sought to grow its membership beyond its traditional stronghold among workers for Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, the so-called “Big Three” American car companies, after the success of its strikes last year that secured big pay increases and other benefit improvements. In February, the union said it would be dedicating $40 million over the next two years to doing so. The newspaper Automotive News says that those rich contracts, combined with the charismatic leadership of UAW President Shawn Fain, created a “perfect storm” for expansion.
The southern governors said that they fear the rise of organized labor in their states, which have some of the lowest rates of unionization in the country, might lead to layoffs. But the opposition is also ideological. “The experience in our states is when employees have a direct relationship with their employers, that makes for a more positive working environment,” their statement says. All six states have right-to-work laws that make it harder for unions to collect the dues that fund their collective bargaining activity. In Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, the policy is enshrined in their state constitutions.
The Economic Policy Institute, on the other hand, suggests that “unions threaten the Southern economic development model” that traces its origins to slavery “because they have historically been the primary counterweight against businesses seeking to keep wages and benefits low.” All six states that signed the statement fought in the Civil War as members of the Confederate State of America, which sought to preserve slavery as the basis of all socioeconomic activity.
The Mercedes and Volkswagen union pushes are not the first time that the UAW has tried to unionize in the south; it failed to win votes at the Volkswagen facility in 2014 and 2019. But a win this week would mark a major shift in southern labor relations.