Mike asks, "In your post on Walmart & Dunkin Donuts you say it is nearly illegal to organize a union in the south. Could you explain the legal and other mechanisms that make it so?" Calling it "illegal" is a bit of an exaggeration, but for reasons both cultural and statutory, the South is where organizing campaigns go to die. In the 30s, it proved the firewall against the CIO's nationwide rush. In the 40s, it championed the Taft-Hartley Act and "Right to Work" laws, thus helping to stem Labor's national success, too. But my understanding of this is pretty skeletal. To explain this better than I could, however, I asked Rich Yeselson, one of the smartest labor guys I know, to hold forth. He says Labor's difficulties in the South go much deeper than Taft-Hartley: