Laboring through a diversion

It's an oldie but maybe no longer a goodie.

Virginia's 62-year-old prohibition against union membership as a condition for a job -- the so-called right-to-work law -- is popping up in the preliminaries of the 2009 campaign.

As an issue, it's largely manufactured, the handiwork of Republicans trying to get back in the good graces of checkwriting businesspeople and business organizations trying to remain relevant.

The expressed fear: Right-to-work would be trumped by going-nowhere federal legislation -- aka, card-check -- making it easier to unionize the workplace. Not even Bob McDonnell believes that.

But if only contemporary politicians, in reviving a tradition of union-bashing, were as resourceful as the one who, in the years immediately after World War II, established Virginia as one of 22 right-to-work states.

That would be William Munford Tuck, a barrel-chested, bourbon-drinking, cigar-smoking, country music-loving old-timey Democrat from red-clay Halifax County. Tuck could be as to-the-point as his nickname: Bill.

When Tuck took office as governor in 1946, Virginia -- because of the billions in federal dollars that flowed through the state during the war -- was just beginning its transformation from rural backwater to suburban dynamo.

With the accompanying growth of manufacturing came unions -- and disputes with management.

Three months into Tuck's term, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Virginia Electric and Power Co. -- it's now known as Dominion Resources -- couldn't agree on wages; specifically, on an increase of 17½ cents per hour. The union, with 1,800 members, threatened to strike.

Tuck, through his labor commissioner, tried to broker a peace, but the union wouldn't even send representatives to talks in Richmond. Declaring that the lights would not go out, Tuck vowed to block a strike. There was, however, the small matter of his legal authority to do so.

Undeterred, Tuck carried out a plan largely of his own, one in which he, as the constitutionally designated commander-in-chief of the Virginia State Guard, would in effect draft IBEW members into the militia. They would remain on the job -- as soldiers.

The union was shocked, but the looming strike was short-circuited. And the public loved it.

The following winter, Tuck, his confreres in the state's conservative Democratic machine and the business interests that bankrolled it put in place what is, and remains, an enduring check on unions and their political influence: right-to-work.

The law has clearly contributed to the state's economic development by holding down wages and ensuring stability in the workplace. Though labor has achieved some gains here, right-to-work is still derided by unions as only guaranteeing management's right to pay low salaries.

Over the past century, Virginia's economy has been transformed twice: from agricultural to manufacturing, and from manufacturing to services. There's a lot more money made managing info-tech in Northern Virginia than piecing together sweat shirts and shoes in Southside.

Problem these days is, jobs are evaporating in both regions. And popping labor seems a diversion by politicians and pressure groups focused on getting through an election rather than an economic cycle.

Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 6496814 or . Watch his video column Thursdays on TimesDispatch.com. Listen to his analysis Fridays at 8:33 a.m. on WCVE (88.9 FM).