Happy Labor Day

From anti-labor South Carolina

Happy Labor Day from the most anti-labor state in the country, with the lowest rate of union membership (largely thanks to strict “right to work” laws and the Branch v Myrtle Beach state Supreme Court decision¹, which stripped public employees of most of the meager rights private employees here have to join associations with collective bargaining power, primarily by arguing that state and local agencies are somehow not employers).

Photo by LaTerrian McIntosh on Unsplash

In some of the earliest posts from this newsletter, I wrote about South Carolina’s absurdly one-sided teacher contract. In honor of Labor Day, I’m removing the paywall from that series, which you can access through the links on the post below. A state with collective bargaining rights for public employees would have its share of problems, but it would never allow a contract this unfair, or this destructive to the state’s ability to recruit and retain teachers.