Commentary by Trevor Roe, from The Roanoke Times (my bold):

Alabama, Tennessee and Michigan were under recent consideration as prospective locations for a new manufacturing facility to be built by VW ("Volkswagen mulls Southern plant," Business section, July 8). Since that article ran, Tennessee was announced as the site of the new plant, and Alabama would have been the second choice, because both are "right-to-work" states and Michigan isn't. Southern workers are much less likely to unionize than are workers in Michigan, a state with the highest unemployment rate.

Why don't companies want unions? The major reason is survival in the global economy. Manufacturers and employees must work together, maintaining high levels of production and quality, with minimum levels of waste, in order to compete. They must also be able to react quickly to changes in the marketplace, retaining flexibility to modify products to meet evolving customer demand. Unions present obstacles to such goals, creating impediments to teamwork, flexibility and efficiency.

Unions foster an adversarial atmosphere of us versus them, encouraging conflict between management and employees. Additionally, they oppose concepts that make companies competitive, such as promotion of superior workers into jobs on the basis of demonstrated skills and performance, rather than seniority; termination of slackers with poor work ethics or attendance; incentive programs, and timely modification of processes or products. Such resistance adds appreciable costs to employers, making them less competitive.

Southerners are not ignorant -- elitist views notwithstanding -- and they've observed the historical effect of unionization in formerly industrialized Northeastern and Midwestern states. Understanding that true job security comes from working for a profitable employer, rather than from union protection, they've resisted union attempts to replace declining membership elsewhere with Southern workers.

Read the full commentary.