In simple terms, not only the local factory, but the officials from the State Government of Alabama clearly oppose unions. Thus everyone is afraid they will lose they jobs if they support for a Union. The mindset is that bad. Remember the VW factory in Tennessee, here was VW, with UNION LEADERS ON THEIR BOARD OF DIRECTORS, saying they were neutral to a union, but where the State and Local Government officials went out of they way to say to vote for the UAW is to vote yourself out of job, ending up with most employees voting AGAINST the union for fear of losing their jobs.
That is the mindset of the American South, they HATE organizing. In the North we have local governments even in rural areas. These are referred to as Townships in most states. The South has NEVER had Township, if you are outside an urban center your only local government is the county you are living in and the local school system (and that was imposed on the South During Reconstruction, prior to the Civil War the south did not even have them).
One example of this was a house that burned down several years ago. The local Volunteer Fire Department went to the fire, saw that no one was in danger and then left for the family who lived in the house HAD NEVER PAID THE FEE FOR FIRE PROTECTION. Since the local Volunteer fire department only source of income was people who agreed to pay them an annual fee, those people who did not pay the fee if they house caught on fire was left to burn. We in the north assume such fire protection is paid by local taxes (and they are), but you have NO local taxes in much of the Rural South thus no way to pay for Fire protection unless you pay for it yourself and many southern refuse to do so. This is the same attitude for Southerns NOT to join Union, they see no need for such a group for they are rugged individuals who can take care of themselves, they do NOT need a Union, Fire Department, Police Department or local Government.
This has been observed between the People who settled the North and the people who settled the South since Colonial days. In the North being a member of a team was more important than what one did as an individual. This started with the Puritans and they concept of Community, reinforced during the Colonial period by the need to have the best Militia in the World to fight the French in Canada (The New England Militia was the best Militia in the World from the 1600s when it was founded till after the War of 1812, when that level of Militia was no longer needed for the French had been removed from Canada in 1763 and the British had been neutralised by the defeat of the last independent Native Americans in the Mid West at the Battle of the Thames in 1814).
While Puritanism and the New England Militia system both went into decline after the War of 1812, the concept that the community is the key to society and one is judged by how you help that community remains strong throughout the North. Thus unions, while opposed by the ruling elites of the North, could tapped into this tendency to want to belong and work as a member of a team to build a strong union.
That sense of Community is missing in the South. The South was settled by a lot of second and third sons of nobility who wanted to make a killing and move back to England in style. Thus community was ignored in favor of what I can do myself for myself. The Church of England was technically the Church of the South, but the South was the first region of the Country to disestablish the Church, more to free the Southern States from the cost of taking care of widows and orphans then a desire to separate Church and State.
Sidenote: Technically Pennsylvania never established a church in the Colonial Period, but the practice was to treat the Quakers as that establish church till 1758, where an election revolution took place and the Presbyterians took over the State Government. Pennsylvania than used both the Quakers and the Presbyterians to run its welfare programs for widows and orphans. Other Churches were permitted to join in for children of their fellow religion members. This lasted till the 1870s when Pennsylvania reformed its welfare system for it found to many churches were giving aid to strikers thus the state took over welfare so it could cut out any payments to anyone whose husband or father was on Strike. This policy even extended to School attendance, if your parent was on strike, you could not go to school. When the United Mine Workers ended up in control Broughton School in Allegheny County during the 1928 Coal Strike and had to audacity to keep it open if your parent was on strike OR acting as a scab, ended up in the Broughton School Shooting of 1928, a shooting NOT reported in the Pittsburgh Newspaper tied in with the leading corporate elites of the time period.
As I said, Pennsylvania was between the North and the South and adopted traditions from both areas (and not always the best from either areas). This is true of much of the Ohio Valley from Pittsburgh to St Louis, but back to the South. The South had a habit of NOT developing local Government, it relied on the State and the County Governments only. Where Cities were needed, such city governments were set up, but in rural areas there were NO local Government. Unlike the North, the Militia of the South was considered poorly trained for the main purpose of the Militia was NOT to defend the South against Native Americas, the French in the Mississippi Valley or even the Spanish in Florida, but to keep the slaves in line. Thus the Southern Militia did most of its duties in what the North considered a Secondary Role of the Militia, doing the "Sheriff's Patrol". "Sheriff's Patrol" was a requirement that every freeman in the county (in the South this always excluded freed African Americans) do one night "Patrol" for people up to no good at intersections and other key locations in the County. In the North the "Sheriff's Patrol" was barely manned for no one really cared who was running around at night. In the South the "Sheriff's Patrol" was the key to keeping African Americans slaves from running away from their masters. Unlike the Northern Militia and its tendency to training as a large company or even battalion size unit, the Southern Militia tend to break down into small groups of less then a dozen men to got together once or twice a month and stayed up all night harassing anyone who wandered pass their patrol point. They were given almost a free hand when it came to anyone who passed their patrol spot, including killing anyone they suspected of being up to no good (which included a slave being off the plantation of his owner).
Notice the difference between the North and the South. When it came to Religion, the North wanted everyone to be in one church and to meet at that church to discuss community needs. The South Church was something to join for political gain and once that had been fulfilled many southern abandoned going to church. Using the Church to improve the Community was unacceptable to the South.
This same difference can be seen in the Militia of both areas. In the North you are looking at complete equipped and trained militia forces, trained to fight as a company and battalion level. In the South the Militia was just a collection of small group of men whose main purpose in the Militia was to keep African Americans on the Plantations. This difference was known by the Civil War, the term "Useless Militia" was used by Northern Officers when having to talk about the Southern Militia. That term was NEVER used for Militia north of the Mason-Dixon Line. When it came to Southern Militia units you had 100 to 1000 individuals not a Company or Battalion of soldiers.
After the war of 1812, the Puritan Church and the Militia went into decline in the North (With the Militia going into rapid decline for it was expensive to maintain and with the threat of Native Americas and British attacks gone after 1815, no one could justify the expense of maintaining such an expensive Militia). While both went into decline, the sense of Community that both had produced remained alive and well in the North. Thus what have you done for your community became a common calling in the North, but was almost unheard of in the South. Churches were built, but so were Schools, Libraries and parks. That is BEFORE the Civil War. The North even embraced the idea of requiting everyone to go to school to learn to read and write. Thus by the Civil War, the vast majority of Northern knew how to read and write.
As to the South, the estimate of the number of men who could not read and write can only be estimated, but I repeat a story of the US Civil War when a Northern Unit had surrendered. The Confederate commander taking charge of the POWS set up two tables, one for those who could read and write and one for POWS who could NOT. When everyone in the Northern Unit lined up beside the table for people who could read and write the Southern Officer started to curse at them for NOT listening to him. Finally one of the POWS spoke up that he only thought one person in the whole regiment did not know how to read and write and that person was not present. This shocked the Southern Officer who expected a much larger number of people who could NOT read and write for that was do to the North Embracing Public Education in the 1830-1840 period, while the South only adopting it after it was IMPOSED ON THE SOUTH DURING RECONSTRUCTION.
The South had continued its Militia after the War of 1812 for it was part of the system to keep Slavery alive. The Southern Militia had started out poorly and remained poor till and throughout the US Civil War. The South was able to take these Militia and after some months of training organized them into an effective fighting force, but only till the North could recruit and train its own forces. This took a couple of years but once recruited and trained the Northern Forces ended up crushing the South. The South then went into Reconstruction and hated every part of it for it meant destroying the system the South had been built on since 1609. Over 250 years of Tradition could NOT be changed in the dozen years of reconstruction (1865-1877) thus much of the Southern Tradition of no local government, no sense of Community continued.
Prior to the Civil war the South was actually richer then the North, due to that fact the South's cotton was valuable in Europe. The Civil War did change that to a degree, but what really changed the South was its refusal to embrace any new technology that was NOT under the control of its White Elites. The infestation of the Boll Weevil in the 1870s was bigger blow to the South then losing the Civil War, for it devastated the Cotton Crop, the Crop that was the economic back bone of the South. Thus refusal to fully finance industrialized and the devastation of the Cotton Crop made the South the poorest part of the US by 1900. The South's solution to this was segregation, which only made the situation worse from 1900 to the Great Depression. During the Great Depression FDR directed a huge number of development programs (TVA for one) to the South, for do to its depressed economy, it was cheaper to do a lot of things down South then in the Rest of the Country, and the South was still strongly Democratic and FDR needed their support.
The problem was the older refusal to develop the local community was still embraced by most people of the South. Molly Ivins once commented on taking a group of Texans in Minneapolis and they comments about all the nice parks and other public places in Minneapolis that they wish they had in Texas, but then complaining of the High Taxes and refusing to connect the two. If you want a good community you have to have a sense of community, once you have a sense of Community you then want what is good for the community NOT just for yourself. Thus people in the North are willing to pay higher taxes for better Schools, parks, highways etc. This goes back to the Puritan Tradition of Community reinforced by the Militia of Colonial Days, that manifested itself in the adoption of Public Schools in the 1800s.
The South, never had a Community Church. They had had a State Church for Political purposes, but as soon as they could they abolished it more to save money then to embrace the concept of Separation of Church and State. The Southern Militia emphasised individual actions against potential runaway slaves not people training to act as a member of a larger team. The Refusal to embraced Public Education is another example of the lack of sense of belonging to the community (That that sense is NOT completely missing can be seen in the refusal to abolish Public Schools after Reconstruction, but that the South has been the region most willing to embrace Charter Schools is another sign of a lack of sense of community).
Side note: The North has also embraced Charter Schools but no where near the extent of the South and then mostly in urban centers where Charter Schools are seen as a way to improve each parent's child's education but is slowly coming under attack in the North for Charters Schools inability to do that).
Just a comment that the South has a long history of NOT having Southerns joining together to help each other out. When they had to, such as in the cities of the South, it was done, but where people could avoid it, the rural south to this day, do not join with each other to help each other. That lack of willingness to work together for a common cause is the root problem with forming unions in the South. Unions rely on a sense of community, a sense of people helping each other and wanting to help each other. That sense of community is much stronger in the North then in the South. It is the biggest problem with getting people to join ANYTHING in the south, even Churches (Thus the tendency to join Fundamentalist Churches for those churches offer how you can save YOURSELF and your family but not save others or work together for the Common Good).
You have to understand that mindset and understand that the Southern Politician play up to that mindset and even in the Schools it is a mindset that is taught. Doing something together for the common good does exist in the South, but it is no where near the level you see of it in the North. You have to overcome that and it is NOT easy.
UAW protests at Hyundai dealers over Hyundai's termination of a worker in Korea, would someone NOT in a union even think of starting such a protest?
http://www.uaw.org/articles/uaw-activists-protest-hyundai-dealerships-throughout-us
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