Tennessee and other so-called “right-towork” states haven’t seen much union-oriented labor unrest in decades, largely because it’s been so long since unions in right-to-work states were emasculated. So the latest unionbusting tactics in Michigan, like those recently in Indiana and Wisconsin, recall distant memories, if any, for most workers.

Still, the Michigan fray — pitting thousands of union advocates pressed against lines of helmeted police blocking their path to the halls of a Capitol where Republican legislators were shredding their right to effective unions — evokes past labor battles everywhere.

Unions in Southern states were shorn long ago of their authority to require new employees to join a union if they took a job in a business that had them. After paving the way for free-riders to enjoy union-negotiated wages, lawmakers found other ways to help industry chiefs evade unions.

For example, they allowed employers to limit or fragment union efforts to organize workers, and to stalemate contract agreements with endless negotiations. Unions have thus gradually lost clout to negotiate wages for what once were family-wage jobs.

That distinction, and the resulting decline in wage levels, clearly prompted a shift of jobs from old-line unionized states to lowwage states. The flux of auto-related jobs to the South — car plants and their myriad suppliers — reflects that.

As President Barack Obama said at a rally in Michigan recently, the “right-to-work” law is counterproductive for workers and, we would add, gravy for CEOs.

CEO compensation packages in recent decades have soared. It’s no surprise that 93 percent of the wealth gains from 2000 to 2010 went to the top 1 percent of earners, while the rest of us share the leftover 7 percent.

Unions may have sometimes caused some of their own problems, through feather-bedding and over-reaching job protections and grievance procedures. But these deviations have largely been corrected.

What has not been corrected is the vast abuse of executives to take the lion’s share of corporate profits at the expense of livingwage jobs and benefits for the employees who provide their profits.

There should be a balance point for employee wages and benefits versus executive compensation and perks, but it does not exist, and won’t unless unions are allowed reasonable space to negotiate for workers.

— Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times