My grandfather grew up in a sharecropping family and went into the fields at a young age, with little schooling.
He worked seven days a week but struggled to support my grandmother and raise a family until he was fortunate enough to land a union job at Vultee, a manufacturer in Davidson County.
That union job provided my grandfather with decent wages, the first health care he ever had, and enough time off to learn how to read and write. It enabled my dad to spend his childhood in the classroom instead of the fields and become the first male in the family to graduate high school. And it shaped who I am today, a middle-class manufacturing worker who wants future generations to have the same opportunities I’ve enjoyed.
A referendum on the Nov. 8 ballot puts those opportunities at risk.
CounterpointTennesseans should vote yes on Amendment 1 to put right to work in constitution | Opinion
Hear more Tennessee Voices: Get the weekly opinion newsletter for insightful and thought provoking columns.
Passage of Amendment One would enshrine Tennessee’s deceptively named right-to-work (RTW) law in the state constitution, further eroding workers’ freedom to form strong unions and fight for the kinds of wages, benefits and working conditions that enabled my grandfather to build a better life.
An RTW law permits workers to enjoy the benefits and protections of unions without providing financial support. RTW, a tool of big business, slashes the resources unions have to fight for workers. It weakens workers’ voices and undercuts the worker solidarity at the heart of union strength.
Workers in states with RTW laws earn thousands of dollars less annually, on average, than their counterparts in other states. It’s no surprise then that Tennessee ranks among the states with the lowest median household incomes.
When workers lack the seat at the table that strong unions provide, employers have a free hand to cut corners on safety. The results have been deadly. In one study, a Harvard University professor showed how RTW laws led to a 14.2% increase in workplace fatalities nationwide between 1992 and 2016.
RTW laws also threaten our democracy because workers denied a voice on the job are less likely to exercise political rights as well. Researchers have correlated RTW with lower voter turnout and decreased numbers of working people holding public office.
As harmful as RTW is for Tennesseans, corporations and their lobbyists want to escalate the attack on working families through Amendment One.
Incorporating RTW into the constitution would give this harmful law the same level of protection as the fundamental human rights — like freedom from unreasonable search and seizure — historically provided in this sacred document.
Because constitutional amendments are notoriously difficult to repeal, passage of Amendment One would cement corporate power over working people for years to come and put the prospects of our children and grandchildren at risk.
Sign up for Latino Tennessee Voices newsletter:Read compelling stories for and with the Latino community in Tennessee.
Sign up for Black Tennessee Voices newsletter:Read compelling columns by Black writers from across Tennessee.
Public support for organized labor soared as COVID-19 showed how much workers need the affordable health care, sick time and other benefits that unions help to provide.
Now, supporters of Amendment One intend to stanch worker empowerment in Tennessee and get the voters to help them do it.
But there’s no way I’ll vote against my own interests. I’ll be thinking of my grandfather — and how one good-paying union job changed my entire family’s trajectory — when I vote against Amendment One.
Van Tenpenny is the financial secretary of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1155L and an operating technician at Bridgestone.
