South Carolina GOP governor blasts labor unions while touting economic growth in annual address
ABC News
The Republican governor of South Carolina has had harsh words for labor unions in a major address
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The Republican governor of South Carolina took a shot at unions in his State of the State address Wednesday, warning that recent economic growth will be undone if labor organizers make inroads in cornerstone industries across the region.
The conservative state has the nation's lowest rate of union membership, despite the U.S. Labor Department recording a 40% uptick in South Carolina union counts last year. Gov. Henry McMaster's heightened attacks come two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court punted its decision to hear a yearslong dispute between the State Ports Authority and the International Longshoremen's Association, or ILA.
The “pro-union policies” of President Joe Biden — whose singular support of laborbrought him to autoworkers' picket lines last year — won't “chip away” at his state's “sovereign interests,” McMaster added.
"We will fight. All the way to the gates of hell. And we will win this battle," McMaster vowed in his annual speech to much applause.
The state has been locked in a fight with the dockworkers' union over who will operate cranes at a $1 billion container terminal in Charleston since its opening nearly three years ago. McMaster emphasized the state’s belief that the ILA employed strong-arm tactics it's not allowed to use when it sued and boycotted shipping containers. A U.S. Court of Appeals recently ruled in the union's favor, but McMaster expressed confidence that the nation's highest court would take the case.
