Saturday Data: The Right To Work (In a NON Union Shop) States

     Statistic: There is only one Mercedes plant in the world that has no union representation.
      It is in Alabama.
     Alabama is a "Right to Work" State. 
               The title comes from the enabling legislation. It means employees can not be forced to belong to a union to work at a particular company. A just-as-good title might have been a "Screw The Unions" State.
     As The Associated Press reported, the president of the UAW and the top worker's representative in the entire Mercedes company held a news conference at the huge and growing Vance Alabama plant to press for union representation on Friday.
    But this dispute goes much further than just Vance.

  
      Southern States like Alabama have become Meccas for big auto assembly plants because they have low taxes and will keep the unions at the gates, even though it was unions that forced Alabama companies to provide for time off and vacations and health insurance in the early decades of the 20th Century.
     Companies, like Mercedes, are supposed to be neutral on the subject of unionization, but the union officials in Vance yesterday said they believe that's not happening.
     Right to work legislation has its supporters, and its opponents. Click o the appropriate link and choose a side. One way or the other, the UAW has announced the formation of a chapter at the Mercedes plant, and workers have started signing up. Now they have to convince enough workers to join that they can win the right to represent the workforce in dealing with the Mercedes management, just as it is done at every other Mercedes plant in the world.

[Saturday Data is a regular feature of TimLennox.com]