The anti-union South began to crack

The anti-union South began to crack

For five decades, the southern United States has been an attractive location for foreign automakers to open factories thanks to cheap tax breaks and cheaper non-union labor.

Now, the United Auto Workers have dealt a major blow to that model: winning a major union victory after decades of failing to unionize automakers in the South.

The UAW easily won a historic victory Friday at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with 73% of workers voting in favor of the union. It was the UAW’s first victory in trying to represent workers at foreign auto manufacturing plants in the South.

While one win won’t change the union landscape in the South overnight, labor experts say Tennessee’s victory could be a turning point in the least unionized part of the United States. (South Carolina and North Carolina have the lowest union rates in the US; Louisiana is the sixth-lowest.) For one, it might provide momentum for the current union drive at foreign auto plants in the South and spill over into organizing efforts in other industries. said Stephen Silvia, a professor at American University and author of “The UAW’s Southern Gamble: Organizing Workers at Foreign-Owned Vehicle Plants.”

A UAW victory at Volkswagen “will not by itself realign the South. But it is an important building block for the realignment of the south,” said Silvia, adding that the victory “challenges the southern growth model.”

The UAW has announced efforts to organize workers at 13 automakers, including foreign automakers such as Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and Volvo. The union also aims to organize three American EV makers – Tesla, Rivian and Lucid. Of the three, however, only Tesla has a factory in the South, in Texas.

The first test of the UAW’s momentum comes next month, when a union vote at the Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama, is expected to be completed. The factory has about 6,000 hourly workers.

But the history of difficult structural dynamics in the South for unions is deep-rooted. And a union victory in the auto industry is likely to generate a significant political backlash.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said earlier this year he would “fight” unions “to the gates of hell,” and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said “the Alabama model for economic success is under attack” by unions.

“Unions are an existential threat to the political economy of the South,” said Erica Smiley, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Jobs with Justice. Union members are more active in politics, studies show, and more likely to push for pro-worker policies. This poses a challenge to the anti-union political and business consensus in the region.

The auto industry is moving to the non-union South
Detroit and other industrial cities in the North dominated the auto industry for most of the 20th century, but the US auto industry has increasingly shifted to the South in recent decades.

Nissan opened a plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, in 1983, followed by BMW’s opening in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1994. Mercedes-Benz came to Vance, Alabama, in 1997. Honda moved to Lincoln, Alabama, in 2001. And Volkswagen, Toyota, Hyundai and Kia built factories in the South in the 2000s.

Since 1990, the share of auto jobs in the South has doubled from around 15% to 30% today, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Meanwhile, the Midwest share has dropped from 60% to 45% The transition to electric vehicles is poised to accelerate this trend. Most non-union EV jobs and manufacturing investment surged in Republican-led Southern states. The region has taken 66% of planned EV jobs, according to a report by the Environmental Defense Fund.

Part of the reason foreign automakers have moved to the South is to escape unions. Before Friday’s victory, the highest-profile union election held in the South in recent years was an attempt to organize Amazon warehouse workers in Alabama in 2022. The union lost two separate votes there, though there was a hearing set for later in the week. it’s about protesting an election that could order a third vote or confirm the loss of the union.

Every state in the South has “right-to-work” laws, which allow workers to opt out of paying union dues at their workplace, even if they benefit from union bargaining agreements, reducing unions’ financial resources for strategizing and bargaining. what war collectively.

Southern political leaders have also used tax breaks and other subsidies to attract auto investment to the states. These incentives have been based on companies preventing unions.

“In the South, you have a political and economic establishment that has built an economic model based on low wages and the voice of small workers,” Silvia said.
“When the UAW has tried to organize, they’ve tried to fight it.”

GOP leaders have acted to block unions and preserve this model.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee in 2019 visited a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga to encourage workers to reject unions, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said in 2015 she was a “union buster” when recruiting the automaker to the state.

Southern states like Georgia have passed laws threatening to cut subsidies to companies that voluntarily recognize unions.

Overcoming union opposition
The main obstacle to union efforts in the South was the relationship between unions and the Democratic party.

High-ranking workers who support the UAW’s efforts at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga told CNN that one problem they face in trying to win union votes is their co-workers’ dislike of Biden — who supported the union in its auto strike last year and who has been endorsed by the union.

But Volkswagen’s victory, UAW President Shawn Fain told CNN, shows that politics is not an insurmountable obstacle when it comes to organizing in the South.

“Trump will win Tennessee by a pretty big margin, I think. You know, we just won by 73% in Tennessee,” Fain said. “I am not worried about this political aspect, because our campaign is to bring justice to the workers.”

After the UAW’s victory at Volkswagen, labor advocates expect to see other states pass measures to block union efforts — but workers may be energized.

“I think we’re going to see a lot of efforts to revive labor in the South. The gains in Chattanooga are not going to stay in Chattanooga,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor historian at the University of California, Berkeley.

Erica Smiley of Jobs with Justice said “unions must stop seeing the South as a no-man’s land” where they can’t win and invest in efforts to organize southern industries.