Wow, just wow. Workers at a Chattanooga, TN Volkswagen plant voted 712 to 626 against joining the United Auto Workers with 89% participation. Once again the South proves it does not have a clue. This was an historic vote as no foreign-owned auto assembly plant in the South has union representation. Not that labor historians will be surprised. Being a US labor historian is well, a rather lousy job. Not that the two members of that profession I have known personally let it show, but I am sure I would be swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills if my job was to research, write about, and teach the sordid, dismal history of working people in our supposedly free country. Contemporary union organizing rarely even reaches the stage where the workers need to be intimidated and frightened into voting against their own interests. American individualism and self-centered ignorance have always meant that the bosses win.
Oh? You say, what about the New Deal years? Those were pretty good years for working people, as it is almost catechism in American history that post WWII saw the greatest middle class ever emerge in this country. Yes, that is true but it was basically a truce between labor and management. The company gained relative labor peace, the workers gained wages that rose beyond simple subsistence and health care, pension, and other benefits. The treaty of Detroit that basically started these civilizing tendencies also laid the groundwork for today's plutocratic, plantation economy. What workers were unable to secure was a meaningful voice in management. Meaning that what was conceded could easily be taken away once conditions changed.
Thirty years of Neoliberal business rule in Washington, and management's dreams have come true. The peasants are back in line, profits and executive pay have skyrocketed, as has inequality.
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