Republican officials led a vigorous campaign opposing the organizing effort. In the run-up to Friday’s vote, six Southern governors, all Republicans, led by Alabama’s Kay Ivey, warned about “special interests looking to come into our state and threaten our jobs and the values we live by.”
Alabama state lawmakers also passed a measure to deny state funding to companies that voluntarily recognize unions. The Republican speaker of the state’s House of Representatives, Nathaniel Ledbetter, has referred to the UAW as “a dangerous leech.”
Why is there even a union vote? What is stopping some workers from banding together in a club, increasing their leveraging power as more choose to join?
Lack of legal recognition and protections? I’m not really aware of any states that have provisions to recognize a union that only comprises a quarter or a third of employees doing a specific job for an employer. Closest I’ve seen was places where different jobs were unionized and non-union positions, like one job where all the drivers got a union, but not any of the warehouse staff.