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RIGHT TO WORK STATES There are currently 24 right-to-work states. The first states to pass rightto-work legislation were Florida and Arkansas in 1944.
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million every year. To try to combat the state’s ailing economy, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed into law a “right-to-work” bill in 2012, which officially made Michigan the 24th right-to-work state. As defined by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a right-to-work law “guarantees that no person can be compelled, as a condition of employment, to join or not to join, nor to pay dues to a labor union.” Research shows that right-to-work states grew faster in nearly respect than their union-shop counterparts between 2000 and 2012 when it came to gross state product, personal income, population and payrolls.
UNIONS TURNING ATTENTION TO THE SOUTH
With the once strong Rust Belt suffering from economic decline and loss of population and jobs, unions like the UAW are looking south to numerous right-to-work states that have thrived in recent years. Foreign-owned automobile manufacturers like Nissan, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Honda and Hyundai are all operating with non-union factories, and the UAW wants nothing more than to unionize each one due to the fact that in the last 30 years, almost every job lost at a U.S. car factory has been at a unionized plant and most job gains have been at non-union companies. Historically, the south has been the least unionized region of the United States. In fact, in 2013, all southern states, minus Alabama, had a union rate less than 6.5 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. Alabama’s unionization rate was 10.7 percent, which was still below the national rate. “Alabama and Louisiana
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tend to be the more unionized states in the southeast,” said Frank McRight, an attorney at BURR & FORMAN. “Part of that is historical, and part of it is the particular mix of manufacturing found in both states. Extraction industries like paper and coal and steel—industries where you don’t locate manufacturing far from the source of raw materials—have historically been unionized, and those are many of the industries that have been located in both states.” 1944
THE FIGHT FOR THE SOUTH
Numerous factories across the South are facing the threat of unionization by the UAW. Although workers at most factories are fighting back and resisting the UAW’s urge to unionize, the fight is far from over. At German carmaker’s Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, it’s no surprise UAW is fighting for unionization. The plant produces the Passat, which won the 2012 Motor Trend Car of the Year Award and that very same year there were more than 110,000 Passats sold. While Volkswagen is forced to maintain neutrality (a requirement that means the company cannot involve itself in any matter), U.S. Senator Bob Corker (RTennessee) led the charge against the UAW, speaking out against the UAW and educating the factory’s employees and the city about the risks that come with unionization, including the risk of losing a second assembly line that Volkswagen was considering adding to the Chattanooga plant that would add a second automobile to the factory’s output. Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam also warned that voting to unionize would discourage auto parts suppliers to open factories in Chattanooga. An election was held at the Volkswagen plant in February 2014, and despite the UAW’s best efforts, workers voted against unionization. A few months later, Volkswagen announced it would build its midsize SUV in Chattanooga, a more than $600 million investment in the region that would add 2,000 new jobs at the plant.
JAN-MAR 2015
AL CONSTRUCTION NEWS
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