Open shops, closed minds shut out organized labor.

• Position: Interview with Prof. Clark Ross - Interview

Clark Ross is chairman of the economics department at Davidson College. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from Boston College, where he wrote his dissertation on union wage changes. Here he takes a look at the low rate of unionization in North Carolina.

BNC: The Bureau of National Affairs Inc. reports there were 132,200 union members in North Carolina in 1995, just 4.2% of employees. Why so low?

There are four or five reasons. Economists have difficulty isolating their importance. Unions like to stress that in a right-to-work state there's an inherent bias against them because workers aren't forced to join. As a result there's a tendency to "free ride." We can see that in the number of people covered by union agreements that elect not to be members. But it's not extraordinary - it's about a percentage and a half higher. Most serious academic studies do not show that right-to-work legislation is a very major factor.

BNC: So what else explains the low rate?

There's tended to be skepticism over the years of more Northern-dominated or externally dominated organizations. So to some extent, they haven't appealed to white male manufacturing workers here. Women and minorities haven't been strongly represented in leadership, which means unions aren't as appealing to the female and African-American workers, who are very well-represented in North Carolina. And some employers, not so many in manufacturing but in services, have been effective in trying to raise wages above the market just enough to deter unionization.

UNIONIZATION RATES States with lowest percentage of union members to total employment South Carolina 3.3% Georgia 6.8% North Carolina 4.2 Louisiana 7.0 Mississippi 5.2 Florida 7.3 Texas 6.5 South Dakota 7.7 Virginia 6.7 Arkansas 7.8 United States 14.9% Source: The Bureau of national Affairs Inc., 1995 BNC: Wouldn't you expect unions to do well in a manufacturing-heavy state like North Carolina?

The industry here is lower-value-added, and the output is sold in more competitive markets, particularly textiles, which are subject to a lot of international competition. So there's a problem with higher wages here being translated into output losses and employment losses. There's also the prospect of replacing relatively underskilled labor with machinery.

BNC: Are there other ways North Carolina's union situation is distinct?

Historically, with textiles, you have mills in smaller towns that are family-owned and in many cases very paternalistic...