Bill Gillespie's Road Diary: Day 8

"Take this seriously. Otherwise, you're going to be just like us. And that ain't what you want."

Gilda Cobb-Hunter has a warning for Ontario Unions.

Don’t think it can’t happen to you.

Cobb-Hunter is the deputy leader of the Democratic Party in the South Carolina legislature. She is a former social worker, the director of a domestic abuse centre and an opponent of anti-labour Right to Work laws.

South Carolina is a conservative southern state. Its young men enlisted in the Confederate army and fought and died in the American civil war against the Yankee north. Today the Confederate flag still flies at the State Legislature in the capitol, Columbia.

Like many southern states, South Carolina didn’t take well to liberal innovations from the north - such as union-friendly labour laws.

So in 1954 the state became one of the first to pass a so-called Right to Work law.

Right to Work Law boosters insist weaker unions are a key to creating a business-friendly Ontario that will usher in a new era of prosperity.

But Gilda Cobb-Hunter says South Carolina has had a Right to Work Law for 59  years and folks are still waiting for the prosperity.

There is no shortage of negative markers in South Carolina. The fourth highest unemployment rate of the 50 United States. The highest percentage of mobile home ownership. The highest violent crime rate. The 47th lowest percentage of children that graduate from high school.

Cobb-Hunter blames much of it on anti-union laws adopted by conservative Republican and Democratic Government over the years. The laws have been very effective in reducing the numbers and influence of unions. Today less than five percent of workers in South Carolina are union members.

As union jobs with decent pay began to decline, the middle class began to shrink.

Amongst the worst off are public employees.

Over the past 20 years Cobb-Hunter says the state of South Carolina has cut the number of state employees from 80,000 to 56,000. During the same period the population of South Carolina increased by about a million to 4.7 million citizens.

She says state employees are woefully underpaid and overworked. In addition, it is against state law for state employees to form a union and bargain collectively. Cobb-Hunter says since it was first passed 59 years ago, the scope of the Right to Work law has been expanded to give employers the right to fire a worker almost without cause. Many state employees have come to her she says, telling her they want to form a union but are afraid if they are heard even discussing the possibility they will be fired. Their fears are well-founded she says.

Cobb-Hunter says what she has seen in South Carolina is that a Right to Work law is just the thin edge of the wedge. Other anti-union laws follow.

And she has a warning for Ontarians. Don’t think this can’t happen to you. It can. The ideologues that are pushing Right to Work laws are lavishly financed and relentless. If those backing this agenda succeed, Cobb-Hunter says Ontario will be on its way to becoming South Carolina.

And she says you DO NOT want to be South Carolina.

If you want to see the force of nature that is Gilda Cobb-Hunter (and her amazing black and yellow robe and headdress) click on the video link and catch a few of her comments.

Today is the fourth of July here in the U.S. A longshoreman has invited us over for a BBQ. After we’ll go down to the waterfront to catch the fireworks and ask the folks we meet how they feel about unions.