COLUMBIA, S.C.—Boeing workers’ overwhelming anti-union vote at the aviation giant’s 787 Dreamliner plant in South Carolina is a big victory for Southern politicians and business leaders who have lured manufacturing jobs to the region on the promise of keeping unions out.
It’s also a win for the company that will host President Donald Trump at its North Charleston facilities Friday.
Nearly 3,000 workers were eligible to vote Wednesday on representation by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace workers. According to Boeing, nearly 74 percent of the more than 2,800 votes cast were against representation.
It was a massive victory for union opponents, in line with longstanding Southern aversion to collective bargaining. At 1.6 percent, South Carolina maintains the lowest percentage of unionized workers in the country, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Its neighboring states, North Carolina and Georgia, hover slightly higher but still in low territory, at 3.0 and 3.9 percent, respectively.
Other largescale Southern unionization efforts recently haven’t met with success. In 2014, Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, turned down representation by the United Autoworkers. For years, organizers have campaigned for representation among Nissan workers in Canton, Mississippi, but no vote has been scheduled.
