Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
Session 4.09 Economic Policy
Session Abstract or Summary
This panel will present the history and application of Right-to-Work campaigns in the Appalachian region, and submit a qualitative evaluation of the effects of Right-to-Work on working-class communities following the national 'Great U Turn' of the 1970s and 1980s. Those decades featured increasingly sophisticated and professionalized political and corporate initiatives to contain and roll back organized labor in the region.
Southern states----including Tennessee----adopted Right-to-Work measures following the 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act. Employing the language of deeply embedded American cultural values of independence, self-determination, and individualism to discredit even the idea of organized labor. Effectively eliminating contractual union security protections, Right-to-Work laws swiftly expanded in the Old South and the emerging Southwest, where the remnants of institutional legal segregation joined forces with political capitalists in corporations and state legislatures. Such laws have recently been adopted in previous union strongholds such as Michigan and Indiana.
Right-to-Work was therefore an essential component of the broader business and political assault on unions, contributing significantly to the erosion of purchasing power, stagnation of wages, and economic security for millions of poor and working-class citizens. The structural redistribution of wealth upwards, and the unchecked concentration of income and wealth and economic opportunity in the Appalachian region, was dramatically catalyzed by the destruction of private sector organized labor. Our panelists will explain and offer recommendations, as well as soliciting lively debate, on this issue.
Panelists: Anita Puckett, Virginia Tech
Lou Martin, Chatham University
John Hennen, Morehead State University
Submitter:
John Hennen is a professor of labor and working-class studies and Appalachian history at Morehead State University.
Presentation #1 Title
Union Avoidance: The language and practice of "Right-to-Work" campaigns in Appalachia
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
This panel will present the history and application of Right-to-Work campaigns in the Appalachian region, and submit a qualitative evaluation of the effects of Right-to-Work on working-class communities following the national 'Great U Turn' of the 1970s and 1980s. Those decades featured increasingly sophisticated and professionalized political and corporate initiatives to contain and roll back organized labor in the region. Southern states----including Tennessee----adopted Right-to-Work measures following the 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act. Employing the language of deeply embedded American cultural values of independence, self-determination, and individualism to discredit even the idea of organized labor. Effectively eliminating contractual union security protections, Right-to-Work laws swiftly expanded in the Old South and the emerging Southwest, where the remnants of institutional legal segregation joined forces with political capitalists in corporations and state legislatures. Such laws have recently been adopted in previous union strongholds such as Michigan and Indiana. Right-to-Work was therefore an essential component of the broader business and political assault on unions, contributing significantly to the erosion of purchasing power, stagnation of wages, and economic security for millions of poor and working-class citizens. The structural redistribution of wealth upwards, and the unchecked concentration of income and wealth and economic opportunity in the Appalachian region, was dramatically catalyzed by the destruction of private sector organized labor. Our panelists will explain and offer recommendations, as well as soliciting lively debate, on this issue. Panelists: Anita Puckett, Virginia Tech Lou Martin, Chatham University John Hennen, Morehead State University
Submitter: John Hennen is a professor of labor and working-class studies and Appalachian history at Morehead State University.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
John Hennen is a professor of labor and working class history and Appalachian history at Morehead State. He is also a volunteer labor educator and board member for the Kentucky Labor Institute.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Anita Puckett is a specialist in linguistics and the anatomy of power and direct the Appalachian Studies program at Virginia Tech.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Lou Martin is professor of history and the author of a forthcoming (Summer 2015) book from the University of Illinois Press, based on his research in rural industrial culture.
Union Avoidance: The language and practice of "Right-to-Work" campaigns in Appalachia
This panel will present the history and application of Right-to-Work campaigns in the Appalachian region, and submit a qualitative evaluation of the effects of Right-to-Work on working-class communities following the national 'Great U Turn' of the 1970s and 1980s. Those decades featured increasingly sophisticated and professionalized political and corporate initiatives to contain and roll back organized labor in the region. Southern states----including Tennessee----adopted Right-to-Work measures following the 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act. Employing the language of deeply embedded American cultural values of independence, self-determination, and individualism to discredit even the idea of organized labor. Effectively eliminating contractual union security protections, Right-to-Work laws swiftly expanded in the Old South and the emerging Southwest, where the remnants of institutional legal segregation joined forces with political capitalists in corporations and state legislatures. Such laws have recently been adopted in previous union strongholds such as Michigan and Indiana. Right-to-Work was therefore an essential component of the broader business and political assault on unions, contributing significantly to the erosion of purchasing power, stagnation of wages, and economic security for millions of poor and working-class citizens. The structural redistribution of wealth upwards, and the unchecked concentration of income and wealth and economic opportunity in the Appalachian region, was dramatically catalyzed by the destruction of private sector organized labor. Our panelists will explain and offer recommendations, as well as soliciting lively debate, on this issue. Panelists: Anita Puckett, Virginia Tech Lou Martin, Chatham University John Hennen, Morehead State University
Submitter: John Hennen is a professor of labor and working-class studies and Appalachian history at Morehead State University.
