RACE

Workers Are Joining Labor Unions Like It’s 1919

The South’s trend toward unionization is the latest chapter in a story of racism and antisemitism that began more than a century ago

Elaine Massacre of 1919 defendants Ed Hicks, Frank Hicks, Frank Moore, J. C. Knox, Ed Coleman, Paul Hall, and Scipio A. Jones, the group’s legal counsel (far left). Source: Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System | Zinn Education Project

April was a busy month for the United Auto Workers Union (UAW). Last Friday, the union avoided a potential strike, reaching a tentative agreement with Daimler Truck covering thousands of workers in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia.

The Daimler Truck deal, announced by Union President Shawn Fain, includes wage increases, cost-of-living adjustments, and profit-sharing. The union hopes for a similar outcome at Alabama’s Mercedes Benz plant as part of its $40 million campaign to unionize automakers across the southern United States.

The previous week, workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tennessee automobile factory voted to join the UAW, with nearly 75% of the company’s workers voting in favor of unionization. Tennessee’s labor turnaround holds particular significance given the UAW’s two previous unionization attempts. From the Washington Post:

The vote marks the biggest organizing victory in years for the UAW and for the broader labor movement, which has long faced difficulty in Southern states. The UAW had twice previously failed to…