Our elected state officials, especially those with the big “R” attached to their names, will tell you they believe in small government and personal liberty.
But this only goes so far. As best we can determine, this conviction only applies to things like guns, abortion, “traditional” marriage and regulations on business and industry.
It certainly does not apply to the workers’ right to choose whether or not they want to unionize.
On this subject, our elected officials — from the governor to the members of the state legislature — have no trouble at all in siding with big business at the expense of the workers.
Last week, a group of international trade union leaders visited the state in support of the United Auto Workers union efforts to organize at the Nissan plant in Canton.
One of those leaders, Jyrki Raina of IndusriALL Global Union, stated the group’s intentions clearly.
“In the globalized world, we can’t allow Nissan to treat the workers in Mississippi as second-class citizens,” he said.
Yet, treating workers like second-class citizens has always been a key component to Mississippi’s share-cropper economy where workers are convinced they are “lucky” to have jobs that generally pay less than jobs in other states and where virtually every decision that affects employees is made by management.
It is an idea so deeply ingrained in our state ethos that even the workers concede all authority to management.
Gov. Phil Bryant, who makes no pretense about his ultra-cozy relationship with big business, boasts routinely that new industries are locating in Mississippi because of the state’s business-friendly climate and the quality of the state’s workers.
Yet it’s pretty clear that “business-friendly” is code for relaxed regulation and low taxes and “quality of workers” is code for non-union workers.
It is an attitude that is embraced by our legislature, too, which passed not one, not two, but three pieces of legislation in the 2014 session designed to impede attempts by workers to organize.
Regardless of personal feelings about unions, the mountain of obstacles thrown up by our legislature to prevent workers from organizing cannot be fairly defended.
Mississippians believe in fair play. And in this instance, it should be up to the workers themselves to decide whether or not they want to form a union.
The history of the labor movement in our country strongly illustrates that there should be a balance between management and labor.
When faced with this undeniable truth, there are those who say that the time of the union has passed, that the appalling abuses that characterized the industrial revolution that led to the union movement have been addressed through our judicial system.
But that argument suggests that there is no longer a need and right for workers to have a meaningful say about what happens in the workplace.
Our own state government suggests that big business enjoys a favored status when disputes between management and worker emerge.
In each session of the legislature, it is clear whose side our elected officials are on.
Hint: There is not a single piece of legislation in recent memory that protects the rights of the workers.
Given that, we simply cannot trust our leaders to be a fair and impartial arbiter of these matters. By their own acts, our legislators are proving the value and necessity of organized labor in our state.
Unions are not the “enemy” they have been portrayed to be.
There is no reason that a Mississippi worker should expect lower pay or poorer working conditions than workers in other states. Our state should not be viewed as a domestic alternative to the sweat-shops of third-world countries.
We are better than that, even if our governor and legislators don’t really believe it.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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