Textile Workers and Union Sentiment

Although southern textile workers typically are portrayed as anti-union and extremely deferential, there is little empirical evidence to support such an assertion. We present data from 208 textile workers in a southern textile community without any unionized mills. We find that paternalistic class relations are still a factor in worker attitudes but that workers also express higher levels of activism and union support than expected. The continued presence of paternalism in the textile industry is explained in terms of a peripheral industry within a peripheral region. Variations in union support are related most strongly to length of time at the current mill, gender, and amounts of deference and activism expressed.