To call the April 19 vote by Volkswagen AG workers in Tennessee to unionize historic may be a bit of an understatement. Not only was it the first foreign-owned auto plant in the South to organize, the vote was a mind-blowing 2,628-985, or 73% in favor. The win by the United Auto Workers came after decades of losses as plant after plant opened across the South.
On today’s show, Dr. Stephen Silvia explains how foreign automotive companies whose workers had strong unions in their home countries followed an American playbook to stifle organizing efforts in the United States.
Silvia is a professor in the School of International Service at American University and author of The UAW’s Southern Gamble: Organizing Workers at Foreign-Owned Vehicle Plants.
He talked with Dan Golodner on the Tales from the Reuther Library podcast.
On this week’s Labor History in Two: OSHA goes into effect.
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Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
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LHT Archives: Debs on capitalism; Dudzic on the Labor Party
LHT Archives: Painters join Black Lives Matter protests; the history of black police in America; Race and Rebellion
The 1913 Dublin Lock-out
Shootout in Matewan; General strike in KC
Passaic textile strike & LAWCHA preview
Sea Shanties and the Pleasure of Work
50 years of “Strike!”
Mourn for the dead, fight like hell for the living!
Ludlow: My name is Louis Tikas
The U.S.-Canadian Labor History Collaborative
Canal workers, gays & miners, Gandhi’s labor quote
The Hardhat Riot
We Were There; Pins and Needles; Dust for Blood
Bootlegged Aliens; UPPER CASE WOMAN
Workers on Arrival: Black Labor in the Making of America
Singing About Food Labor; Bill Lucy on the ’68 Memphis strike
The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly
The Valentine’s Day Strike of 1921
Remembering John Sweeney and Anne Feeney
What’s the matter with labor history?
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