Republicans worked overtime to meddle in the affairs of private industry in Tennessee, as workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga voted on whether or not to unionize. Volkswagen itself, i.e. the employer who would be directly affected by unionization, remained neutral on the issue throughout the process. Republican politicians felt no such compunction to keep government hands off of business, though. Amid threats to legislatively withhold future incentives for Volkswagen to invest further in Tennessee, and some ridiculous Civil War analogies, workers narrowly defeated the unionization plan.

This ought to be a victory for business, right? Volkswagen can now create even more jobs in the state, secure in the knowledge that their workers will never dare talk back to them, so everything should be coming up roses for Tennessee’s economy.

Well, no.

Republicans apparently mistook Volkswagen for an American company that ships jobs wherever wages are cheapest and workers are the most powerless, not a company that gives workers a strong voice in its affairs. That misunderstanding, whether deliberate or inadvertent, may cost the state, or maybe even the entire South, more investment by foreign auto makers.

Nice going, jackasses.

Photo credit: By Richard Bartz (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.