DBWI: "Right to Work" laws in the South?

Just learned that General Motors has turned a profit for the 100th consecutive quarter. Its largest factory is in Birmingham, Alabama. No surprise that half of the UAW membership lives in Alabama.

Surprised? The International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) is most active in North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Not only is the ILGWU rank-and-file working in the textile mills but you can also find their members working at Sears, Kohl's and Kmart. ILGWU Local 34, its largest chapter, is located in Charlotte.

Let's not forget about the shipyard workers in Mobile, New Orleans and Fort Lauderdale. They are in the Teamsters (and you thought only the UPS truck drivers were Teamsters).

All these union members form the bedrock of the middle class right here in Dixie. But right in Mississippi, the state legislature is discussing a right to work bill. If this passes, Mississippi will become the first state in the South to have such a law.

What would happen if right to work existed in the South, where labor unions are flourishing? What would have had to happen to bring right to work laws to the South?

Would non-union workers still be able to join the middle class and win such hard earned rights like the minimum wage, health benefits and retirement pensions? Or would we have the situation that is happening now in the midwest, California and Oregon?
 
Why would a Southern state want to enact that most communist of ideas? :confused:

OOC: Right-to-work is the American term for state legislation that outlaws closed shops. It's basically saying that a person has a right to work without being forced to join a Union (or paying equivalent fees to the Union without joining).
 
We'd need a pretty far-back POD to make this work, but I figure that if the Union government had made enough of a hash of Reconstruction, a lot of the enmity between whites and blacks in the South could have survived until today. That, in turn would have provided a lot of political impetus on the part of whites to oppose any sorts of social and economic changes that might threaten to benefit blacks. Do that, and any sort of movement that campaigns for the benefit of all workers (of which there would be plenty of whites and blacks) would suddenly face a hostile reception in the South. Right to Work laws would then be a no-brainer, since Unions would be seen as taking whites' union dues to subsidize the black population.
 
OOC: Right-to-work is the American term for state legislation that outlaws closed shops. It's basically saying that a person has a right to work without being forced to join a Union (or paying equivalent fees to the Union without joining).

OOC: I know that. :p I'm playing off of the literal title because, if you think about it, the term to a right-winger sure sounds pretty communist.
 
Well, coming from here in Iowa, one of the few midwestern states without the right to work, I'd love to be able to stop giving the leeches and thugs my money. But no chance of that with Governor Steve "Commie" King. :mad:
 
Top