Main Street, February 20, 2014, Thursday

Main Street 

February 20, 2014, Thursday

Main Street (full article)

UAW Rejected by VW Workers in Tennessee

But some do not think image was the big issue. They feel that other factors rather than published reports of incidents of union violence, corruption, and greed or government prosecutions of union officials played a role.

"I think any kind of fair, serious analysis of what happened in Tennessee needs to put the vote in the context of the history of labor unions in the South," said Gene Carroll, co-director of the New York State AFL-CIO/Cornell Union Leadership Institute. "It's a virulent and violent anti-union history in which employers exploited racial divisions to obscure workers' common interest in standing together. These cultural and historical issues have deep roots which extend back to the period even before the first amendment rights to freedom of assembly were adopted late in the 18th century."