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Workers Who Win South Can Change The Nation
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As we approach the massive One Nation Working Together march on Oct. 2, MaryBe McMillan, secretary-treasurer of the North Carolina State AFL-CIO, says the road to an economy that works for all must first come through the South.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. realized the only way to win freedom for people of color everywhere was to win it first in the most difficult place—the segregated South. Union leaders must also direct their attention and resources to the South, where union membership is small and violent anti-union tactics are widespread.
In her Point of View column on the AFL-CIO website, McMillan says:
The southern United States is the center for exploitation of workers of all colors. Employees in the South have the lowest wages, the fewest worker protections and the least union representation. And nowhere are the harmful effects of globalization and flawed trade deals more evident than in the South.
She cites her hometown of Hickory, N.C., as an example. Thousands of jobs in the textile and furniture industries have been lost there, mainly because of bad U.S. deals, but workers aren’t rushing to join unions. Because unions have not invested in organizing her neighbors, the only voices they hear are conservative talk-radio hosts and the local Chamber of Commerce. No wonder workers end up voting for anti-worker conservative lawmakers, which hurts every one.
She points out that when unions do pay attention to the South, we can win, citing the election of Kay Hagan, a pro-worker senator from N.C. in 2008, followed by the successful effort by workers to form a union at the world’s largest pork slaughterhouse in Tar Heel , N.C. She says:
During the 1963 march, Dr. King outlined his dream of racial equality. I too have a dream—a dream that one day, even in North Carolina, the least unionized state in the country, all workers will have good jobs and the freedom to organize and bargain collectively.
Read McMillan’s full column, “Workers Who Win The South Change The Nation” here.
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2 Comments
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MaryBe McMillan touch on a major flaw in the National Labor Relations Act. Section 14B has held back American workers longer than the legal manuvers that that have crippled fair labor organizing in our country. Section 14B allows the states to enact separate labor laws that can ban a strong union by banning a “union shop” clause in a labor contract. All of the Southern states have done just that and those states continue to breed anti-union politicians who oppose workers’ rights on every level.
Section 14B should be on the AFL-CIO legislative target list and its elimination should be proposed in every Congress and with equal importance as is the Employee Free Choice Act. Congressman Brad Sherman, D-CA, has been trying to gain support for his bill to repeal Section 14B of the NLRA for 6 years with little effect.
Thanks to you for discussing the importance of organizing in the Southern States. Workers there need to know that all American workers support their right to have good wages, benefits, jobs site conditions and a “strong union” to make those gains.
Section 14B has maintained the “old south” for 63 years longer than it should have. We can work together to get it repealed and bring the southern states’ workers into the 21st Century. It will be a furious battle but its time has come.
Maybe the way for the South to be organized would be new labor organizations called Furniture Workers Confederation ,Textile Workers Confederation , Auto Workers Confederation Etc. Union is a derogatory name in the South, because of events that happened there in the 1860′s.
It might be worth a try.