The Battle The South Won

Wanna know which battle the South did win after all?

Hint:  We already dominate the rest of America when it comes to food, beautiful women, college football, and outward religious displays of piety.

Thirteen (or fourteen, depending on how Oklahoma is classified in your mind) states tend to steer the dialogue of where the United States has come from and where its perceived future lies. Those thirteen states:  Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, and Missouri – and it’s not always a social issue.

Which battle did the South win?

Labor.

The states in green are considered right-to-work states. 

Being a native Arkansan who has spent several years working for the world’s largest private retailer, I know all too well what right-to-work laws look, sound, and feel like. Just thinking of the word union in some cases has caused people to whisper in hushed tones in fear of retribution not solely limited to verbal and written reprimands:  people have lost their jobs for voicing concerns for the working class. While higher wages for a fair day’s work tend to permeate the news cycle as an acknowledgment toward fulfilling the good vs. evil narrative, it is not always about the Benjamins.

What are right-to-work laws and “at-will” employment, you wonder?

Right-to-work laws allow nonunion employees to benefit from union contracts. This means everyone in a company gets the same benefits (i.e. health insurance and pensions) that a few have vigorously fought for if they choose to join the local union or decline its membership. At-will employment is a status that allows the termination of your employment for any time and for any reason. This policy protects employers, not employees by allowing them the freedom to fire you for reasons of their own without fear of legal action. In other words, you can work thirty years at a job as a strong performer and unceremoniously be canned one day because you may be half an hour late for the start of a shift.

Still don’t understand?

Right-to-work (in theory) implies that every employee is equal regardless of professional status or rank. Of course, we still have supervisors, managers, executives, and shareholders who represent the separation between the peon and the big dog due to education, social connections, or work experiences within the industry. Sadly, right-to-work today resembles this scenario:
I work 80+ hours weekly at poverty wages and haven’t received a raise in three years yet am blamed for rising prices at work. If I can make $20/hour somewhere else, what is in it for me to stay here for $9.50/hour to do the same job?

Employers want to pay peanuts for top-notch labor. The South was more successful at it than the North.

We're all looking for work. Hire us, please. 

When Arkansas became the first state to pass right-to-work legislation in 1944, it was done by equating union growth with integration and communism. Nothing seemed more dangerous to certain business owners and the political class than a skilled black man or woman who could call his or her price – and get it over a white male bidding for the same job. Right-to-work stifles that because it stifles wages and development, limits job opportunities, and ultimately drives a wedge between working-class people, provoking many of them to vote against their own interests. As a result, the people who share the most in common are the most deeply divided and often the biggest losers.

Keep ‘em dumb, work the shit outta ‘em for free:  that’s the real Southern political class strategy.

With the nationwide proliferation of right-to-work into traditional union strongholds such as Michigan and Ohio, the South is winning one key battle:  labor. The rich get richer, and the poor work until we drop. Our political pimps bend over for companies to pleasure themselves for a quick buck with little regard for perpetuating a modern-day slavery by offering cheap, plentiful labor and low taxes, if any are to be paid.

Just follow the money – and rhetoric spewed by all nineteen candidates for President of the United States.

The South did win the battle of labor. We’ve been paying for it since the end of the Civil War.