Economic Policy Institute: Operation Dixie failed 78 years ago. Are today’s Southern workers about to change all that?

The Economic Policy Institute's website has a great article on union organizing in the South and the questions and possibilities that that organizing raises for all of us. Included in that article is a chart showing union density in the South, Central Appalachia and the Upper South and measuring that density against national union density. The article correctly situates current-day union wins in a historic context but unfortunatly misses some of Labor's key mistakes in the 1946 efforts to organize Southern workers, and it entirely misses or avoids discussing union organizing in the South in the late 1960s and 1970s. Authors Chandra Childers, Dave Kamper, and Jennifer Sherer have union impressive credentials but they do not come to their work with backgrounds in labor history. Still it's a good article to begin discussions with, and the article helps us make the case that organizing the South means increasing Labor's reach and helps win everyone better conditions regardless of where we live. The article opens with the following paragraphs:

Volkswagen workers’ decisive recent union election victory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, makes them the first Southern U.S. auto workers to unionize a foreign-owned auto factory. Their success could also mark a historic turning point for generations of Southern workers seeking to improve their jobs and transform their states’ economies.

There are also signs that vigorous enforcement of federal labor law and other pro-worker federal policies, bolstered by the Biden administration, are contributing to a more level playing field for workers attempting to organize in the South.

But a long history of exploitation will take a strong, national labor movement to overcome. For decades, Southern state governments have promised corporate employers the opportunity to profit from the exploitation of local workers. The promise has hinged on a package of state policies designed to enrich the powerful few and maintain economic and racial inequalities, at the expense of all workers. As detailed in a new series of EPI reports, this Southern economic development model has been characterized by low wages, low corporate taxes, lax regulation of businesses, and extreme hostility toward unions.

Despite this hostility, generations of Southern workers have fought to organize unions, at times achieving important but limited success. More often, intense employer repression of unions has blocked or crushed Southern workers’ organizing efforts, while state lawmakers have enacted policies to restrict collective bargaining rights in the South. As a result, Southern states have some of the lowest rates of union coverage in the country. Figure A shows that, while union coverage rates stand at 11.2% nationally, rates in 2023 were as low as 3.0% in South Carolina, 3.3% in North Carolina, 5.2% in Louisiana, and 5.4% in Texas and Georgia.

Read more here.