Weekend Review: Victory for Entrepreneurial Federalism
Will on UAW’s big loss in Chattanooga.
By: George Will
[A]t a Tennessee factory, workers rejected representation by the United Auto Workers union. The 712-626 vote … against unionizing the 3-year-old Chattanooga Volkswagen plant was a shattering defeat for the UAW, for organized labor generally, and for liberalism nationally. It was a commensurate victory for entrepreneurial federalism.
Sixty years ago, 35 percent of America’s workforce was unionized, almost entirely in the private sector. Today, 11.3 percent is unionized. About half (49.6 percent) of this minority are government workers whose union dues do much to elect their employers. UAW membership has plummeted as far and fast as Detroit has – from 1.5 million in 1979 to about 380,000 in 2012. …
It is commonly, and carelessly, said that Washington bailed out “the” automobile industry. Actually, government bailed out two of the three companies in one of the two U.S. auto industries – the UAW-organized one. The other industry, located in the South and elsewhere … did not need rescuing because it does not have UAW presence, which helped ruin General Motors, Chrysler and their headquarters city, Detroit. …
In November, a prescient UAW organizer said the union would “probably lose” in Chattanooga if workers were granted a secret ballot election. That is, the UAW favored a “card check” faux election, whereby unionization is approved when a majority of employees, confronted individually by union organizers, sign a card. The UAW could not prevent a proper election, but with the NLRB’s permission the campaign was compressed to nine days. This minimized the time for UAW opponents to make their case.
Despite the UAW’s attempt to do for the South what it has done to Detroit, the South can continue to practice entrepreneurial federalism. Capital is mobile. It goes where it is welcomed and stays where it is well-treated, so states compete to create tax and regulatory environments conducive to job creation. Liberals call this a “race to the bottom.” Conservatives call it a race to rationality. (Read the rest.)
