The South and unions. We may as well accept the things we probably can't change,

[raccoon]

such as Southern workers' antipathy to unions. I have seen it all my life, I don't get it and I guess I never will.

I'd be inclined to think this was changing, because so many people living here grew up in northern states.

I suppose the anti-union workers must think that the many good jobs that used to exist in the Rust Belt were well paid and had eye-popping benefits because the business owners were wonderful, philanthropic people.

[whathehell]

1. Do you remember the movie "Norma Rae"?

Sally Fields starred in it. It was based on a true story of a woman named Crystal (can't remember the last name) who organized in the South.

[raccoon]

2. Yes, I remember the movie. Maybe it was science fiction. LOL

But seriously I have lived here all my life and so many dumbass people are anti-union. People that really would be helped by a union.

I think the Norma Rae case must be an anomaly.

[whathehell]

4. Did you see the film?

The people she organized were also very anti-union -- at first, and it WAS a heavy lift.

I will NEVER understand working people who are anti-union.

[raccoon]

6. No, just clips. nt

[DinahMoeHum]

3. If you want to know why many Southerners resist unions. . .

Last edited Thu Feb 16, 2017, 10:58 AM - Edit history (1)

. . .this piece from 2010 is well worth reading. It's about the ruthless suppression of a strike at a textile mill in Honea Path, SC in 1934, and it set the tone for other failed attempts to organize unions down there back then. The repercussions are still felt today; as many of these people are in a perpetual state of learned helplessness and have turned to identifying with the rich and powerful even though they will never obtain this status for themselves.

http://www.salon.com/2010/09/07/southern_labor_history/

(snip)
After 1934, the labor movement would try every few years to organize Southern textiles. The rise of the CIO unions starting in 1935, left the cotton mills as the biggest industry without a major union presence. An attempt in 1937 failed when organizers tried to convince bosses that the union and the manager could be friends. The mill-hands were disgusted. A more serious campaign in 1946, dubbed “Operation Dixie,” showed little ability to uproot or challenge the now-institutionalized and intensifying stretchout. Seeing no reason to go out on a limb again, the workers held onto their skepticism; little else had ever worked for them. The union, explained mill-hand Ila Dodson, is “nothing but trouble.”

The basic tenets of 20th-century progressive politics in America — unionism, the welfare state, public-safety regulations — all failed the mill-hands, the largest class of industrial workers in the South. And the failure was spectacular, a once-in-a-generation trauma. The inability of New Deal liberalism to bring on board the Southern white working class was, it seems in retrospect, its ultimate undoing. Who was it that voted for Wallace, then Nixon, then Reagan? The depressing question points to the politically weak people for whom racism was the only bullet left in the chamber. We can’t excuse their racism this way. But we can start to understand it.
(snip)

http://www.salon.com/2010/09/07/southern_labor_history/

[whathehell]

5. Thanks for this info..

[raccoon]

7. Saw a documentary about the Honea Path murders some years ago. nt

[delisen]

8. Sometimes the southern worker benefits from unions indirectly-Case of Delta

Threat of unionization in some industries may cause the non-unionized businesses to increase pay and benefits. Delta successfully kept unions out for years but their workers benefitted partly because Delta recognized they had to treat their workers well to prevent unionization.