Southern Govs. Line Up Against Working Class Pay Hikes

Alabama governor Kay Ivey

Pay raises are bad for the working class, but great for business recruitment, according to five southern governors who are upset with the United Auto Workers’ historic organizing victory in the southland.

They charge the UAW used misinformation and scare tactics to persuade workers at the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant to join the union.

The UAW recruitment message: you will earn more money and live a better life as a union member.

Volkswagen announced on April 19 that nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of the more than 3,600 workers at the plant voted to join the union.

It is the first time that the UAW successfully organized a plant in the south. The union lost two earlier votes to organize the Tennessee plant during the past decade.

The UAW’s smashing victory is going to destroy the efforts of the governors to bring “good paying jobs into their states,” according to a joint statement by governors Bill Lee (TN), Greg Abbott (TX), Tate Reeves (MS), Henry McMaster (SC) and Kay Ivey (AL).

The hard reality is that the governors have used the relatively low wages paid to working class people as their primary marketing tool to attract investment into their states.

The governors spend little time worrying about the workers, once those business are up and running. Keeping wages down is their priority. Those "good paying jobs" never become "great paying jobs" because that would be bad for business.

Volkswagen’s top hourly wage at its Chattanooga facility is about $35, which is $5 less than at a UAW organized plant.

The benefits offered by the German automaker hardly come close to the healthcare coverage, profit-sharing, retirement schemes and vacation time that is part of a UAW contract.

Condescendingly, the governors believe that know what’s right for their people.

In their view, southern autoworkers would rather toil for lower wages at non-union plants than abide by contractual work rules that lay out “who can pick up a box or flip a switch.”

The politicos also have “serious reservations that the UAW leadership can represent our values.”

They got that right.

UAW president Shawn Fain said the victory in Chattanooga represents a historic moment for the union, and he is ready to win more for the working class of this nation.

That flies in the face of the “values" held by the southern governors, who like to pit segments of the working class against each other.

The UAW is poised for another victory in the south as 5,000 workers at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, AL, will vote from May 13 to 17 on whether to join the union.

Governor Ivey is in for a shocker.

Razom delivers perfect PR pitch. A Ukrainian human rights group played a key role in persuading Speaker Mike Johnson to hold the vote to spend $95B in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

Razom's appeal to Johnson’s religious beliefs did the trick, according to the Financial Times.

It paid for a billboard ad across the street from Johnson’s Baptist church in Benton, LA. The ad quoted a biblical verse and showed an image of a Baptist church in Ukraine that was damaged by the Russians.

Razom arranged a speaking tour of the Pelican State for a Ukrainian basketball star who played for LSU, and had a helmet and a letter from Ukrainian firefighters serving on the front lines sent to Johnson, whose father was a fireman in Shreveport.

The group also set up meetings of Ukrainian evangelical leaders with Johnson, and a Ukrainian Baptist whose wife and son were killed by the Russians.

Private sessions between Johnson and persecuted Ukrainian Christians also were a “big factor” in winning his support for the vote, according to Melinda Haring, a senior advisor at Razom.

Ukraine, Europe and the US are the beneficiaries of Razom’s PR/lobbying effort.

Trump Media explains stock flop…Trump Media & Technology Group is “explaining” why its shares are trading at $35.75, which is far from the $66.22 closing on March 26, the day after the opening bell rang for its IPO.

Short-selling is the bane of the retail investors who invested in the company because they support its mission “to create a free-speech beachhead against Big Tech censorship,” according to TM&TG's April 23 press release that tells shareholders what they can do to prevent brokerage houses from short-selling their shares.

TM&TG stock’s decline apparently has nothing to do with the fact that the company lost $58.2M during 2023 on a measly $4.1M revenues.

Those numbers were released on April Fools’ Day. The joke may be on the buyers of TM&TG shares.