Thom Hartmann, writing for CommonDreams.org about the recent victory by the UAW to organize in the hostile South:
"The UAW’s successful unionization effort last week at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee—the first successful unionization effort at a car factory in the South since the 1940s—is breaking the brains of Republicans in that region. They’re truly astonished that workers might not trust their corporate overlords with their working conditions, pay, health, and retirement. [snip]
Southern autoworkers, though, aren’t listening to the GOP’s BS any more: A unionization vote is set for the week of May 13 at a Mercedes plant in Alabama, and more than half the workers there have already signed a card indicating their desire for union representation.
The problem for Republicans is that unions represent a form of democracy in the workplace, and the GOP hates democracy as a matter of principle. It’s why conservatives have opposed every effort to expand voting rights from the Jim Crow era, through fighting woman’s suffrage, to opposing voting rights legislation from 1965 to this day." (our emphasis)
The six MAGA Republican governors' statement that Hartmann reproduces is a reactionary, pre-New Deal screed that belongs in the 19th century, as does their corrupt party.
The UAW's successful fight against the major automakers last fall provided a big spark to union organizing, with President Biden walking the picket lines as the most pro-union President. The UAW got wage increases that reflected the wages and benefits they gave up when the industry was struggling, only to have the corporations deny them later.
