Alabama leads the way with a clumsy racist dog whistle complaining that the warmth of the Michigan sun is too warm, and looking to preserve the Renfield style of economic governance it favors after federal interference ended their still favored labor model 160 years ago. Now even companies that want to recognize workers as fully human will be punished. The outside agitators looking to organize are not welcome Just days before workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama began voting last week on whether to unionize, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed a new law that would claw back state incentives from companies that voluntarily recognize labor unions. And companies that voluntarily recognize unions risk losing state incentives, which amount to billions of dollars invested by governments to bring automakers to the region. A week before April’s monumental vote at the Tennessee Volkswagen plant, six Southern Republican governors warned that unionization would jeopardize the region’s auto jobs. In addition to Ivey in Alabama, the governors of Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas signed on. And Ivey continued to rally against organized labor in auto plants last week. “Alabama is not Michigan,” Ivey said at a chamber of commerce event last week. “... We want to ensure that Alabama values, not Detroit values, continue to define the future of this great state.” Red states push back as key labor union pushes into the South Red states push back as key labor union pushes into the South - Tampa Bay Times
Alabama, generally speaking, doesn't have "values""; it has grievances. I should know as every single one of my paternal relatives for 8 generations has been pissed off about something in Bibb County, Alabama, bless their little ol' hearts.
In related news, many of the Alabama anti-union voters were recently seen at a Trump rally, following up their "Lock Her Up!" chant with "We Ain't Want Higher Wages! "
They are shook. For decades, they didn't even have to think about putting their thumb on the scale so forcefully when it came to unions.
Just reading about that... the vote failed, but Mercedez Benz gave in to a few demands of the workers, like higher pay and ending a tiered pay system that was unpopular.
