A lot of us forget that the UAW is actually the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America. I knew that because their late, lamented attorney, Jordan Rossen, worked with me on a case involving unfair unemployment compensation procedures in Georgia. He took it as his, and the Union’s, mission to defend the rights of workers everywhere.
So when I was canvassing in a very pleasant community recently, I encountered a man who had worked as a union aerospace factory worker throughout his working life. He could retire, in comfort, to Florida, as a result of his work and the benefits he had earned as a union member. His manufacturing job had done for him what unions used to do for millions of American workers—enable them to achieve a comfortable standard of living and a secure retirement.
So many manufacturing companies moved to the South to avoid unionization, and succeeded, at least for several decades, that we seldom encounter someone like this gentleman. But it’s worth thinking about him, and about the effect of policies of the “most pro-union President,” on the security and dignity of American workers.