The Stunning Rebirth of the American Labor Movement
On Friday, Volkswagen employees in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted overwhelmingly to join the United Auto Workers union.
This is a truly big deal. The mainstream media — most of whom no longer have labor reporters — have barely mentioned it, but I believe it marks a major turning point for organized labor.
The victory in Chattanooga is the first successful organizing drive of an automaker outside of Detroit’s Big Three and the first major union victory in the South.
Volkswagen had told workers — in a very conservative Republican area — that the “UAW = Biden” and that the union would “turn Chattanooga into Detroit.” Six southern state governors attacked the union as a threat to “liberty and freedoms” and in a joint statement condemned the UAW’s push to organize in their states.
But the union and the workers triumphed anyway.
We are witnessing a historic rebirth of the labor union movement in America. Labor unions are not just an interest group. They are gaining the heft, solidarity, and passion to become what they once were — a movement.
And it’s about time.
For 30 years — from 1946 to the late 1970s — the American middle class expanded, largely because American labor unions won increases in wages and benefits that roughly tracked gains in overall productivity.
Non-union companies gave their workers similar raises because they knew they’d be targets of union organizing if they didn’t.
As American workers produced more, they got paid more. It was America’s postwar social contract.
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