Steve BeshearNASHVILLE, Tenn. – In an unexpected shot across the bow of his GOP neighbors to the south, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has a simple message on labor and economic development for automakers looking to build new plants: We’re not Tennessee.
The Democrat is touting Kentucky’s neutrality on labor matters as “a positive sales point,” particularly in contrast to the turmoil in Tennessee, where Republicans have pulled out all the stops in what may yet be a losing effort to keep the United Auto Workers from gaining collective bargaining rights at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga. Similar unionization efforts are underway at a Mercedes plant near Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Beshear’s public comments are unusually bold in the secretive, cutthroat world of recruiting big-name employers, such as the foreign automakers lured to the South with fat tax incentives and Republican pitches about anti-unionism as a competitive advantage.
Beshear first made the comments to Automotive News Europe during a recent recruiting trip to Germany, Volkswagen’s home turf, and to Sweden, the base for Chinese-owned Volvo Cars, which is rumored to be considering a new plant in the U.S.
“I’m not trying to tell Tennessee or any other state how to handle their economic development efforts,” Beshear told The Associated Press after his return last week. “I can just say that in Kentucky we would welcome either type of situation, either companies with unions or without them.”