Being good for business often means not good for employees. This is especially true for non white-collar workers.
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And yet companies steer clear of Virginia and South Carolina with its better worker cultures.
If I was choosing to plop a company down somewhere I’d choose Virginia, a state 20 years ahead of us. The Richmond school system has a billboard on 440 to get teachers up there and that speaks volumes.
Oh yeah, I absolutely agree. I just wanted to remind everyone about that since we see so many positive rankings, here, about the Triangle based on job availability and “livability”. Just a friendly reminder that, just because we see things like these randomly-picked examples:
…that doesn’t always mean we enable good jobs and good opportunities.
Here’s the problem, though: you’re a reasonable person (I assume), and you probably get that companies benefit from being reasonable and compassionate towards their workers just as much as they are to customers and shareholders.
Then again, we live in the same country where freight rail companies refused to allow sick leave for rail workers until hours before a potential nationwide strike, and Dunkin Donuts franchisees have had a string of child labor law violations throughout the country (examples just from the past month in New Hampshire and Vermont, Pennsylvania etc.). The meta-analysis’ results imply that if we saw similar problems happen in every state and there was no federal intervention, workers in North Carolina have less rights to protect them, and fewer ways to fight back.
This isn’t to say all business leaders in North Carolina (and business policy-makers) are more exploitative than in other states. …but it’s hard to not have that impression, especially with how our General Assembly is the way it is…
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I just spent several days in Phoenix and I would kill for this state to be as libertine and relaxed and not corrupt as Arizona is. The NCGA is the most corrupt, unrepsonsive government in the US and makes us basically a non-Mormon Utah.
Once upon a time 100 years ago Phoenix and Raleigh were in the same spot. Phoenix made the right choices, Raleigh made the wrong choices.
Not touching anything about the Arizona state government but on an English note: LIBERTINE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary
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This state clings too much to its morals and could stand to have multiple partners.
Being able to buy rum at the supermarket, then put a bet on the Canes game on your phone while waiting for a pickup at the dispensary isn’t going to ruin this state. Sadly every one of our politicians - even the good ones like the Jeff Jacksons and if elected to city council Jenn Trumans - don’t North Carolinians to have what Arizonians (and Washingtonians and Michiganders and Illinosians and some New Jerseyites) take for granted.
We can be like them if we try. Sadly this whole state is rotted.
Virginia was hitting up teachers from ECU back in the 60’s.
Why do people even move here when clearly Virginia is, was, and will always be the better state?
The Triangle is often the beneficiary of company cultures that are established elsewhere that drives what’s expected in the STEM and white collar marketplace for employees/talent. It’s the companies that have diversity programs, not the state. It’s the companies that compete for employees with generous benefit packages, not as dictated by the state. It’s the companies the provide time off with pay for new parents, but it’s not required by the state. The marketplace dictates these things because there’s a demand for the talent.
On the other hand, our country doesn’t value its factory workers across the board, and sees their workers as expendable. If their workers quit, so what? They’ll just automate that job or find some other desperate person to take it. This might be changing though with key manufacturing jobs coming back to the USA from China, and with immigration collapsing and facing hostility from a substantial number of Americans and the politicians that represent them. There may come a day soon when these folks will hold more cards than they do today.
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If Virginia is all that then why do they have to beg and plead and put up billboards to get people to move there and we don’t have to do that?
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They want people who are in NC who haven’t left to consider fleeing. Its a shame they can’t get places like Danville or Emporia to be something.
Why Roanoke or Richmond never gets any investment amazes me.
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Idk why you living here 
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I wanted to make this a blue state. I want this to be a good state like Michigan or Washington or Arizona or New Jersey. Even Tennessee or Connecticut would be an upgrade.
Instead y’all would rather be like Utah without the fun LDS quirks or Massachusetts without the cold. My vote means nothing here. At least in Virginia which Youngkin aside is capable of voting blue they have a good state government. Everyone minus Cooper and Jeff Jackson are useless trash.
My fault, I should have used sarcasm font. I’m originally from Chicago… far from wanting us to be Utah. I’m with you though, I wish we would become more progressive, the start of sip and stroll Raleigh was a big move. A few years ago
that would never have been a thing.
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Tennessee and New Jersey? What is going on here.
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What the heck man? Just go ahead and move then.
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Why are all of you opposed to bettering this state as NC falls further and further behind?
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Who the hell are you talking to, bruv? Who is “y’all”? Pretty sure most of us on here are for more progressive policy measures, but unfortunately none of us are billionaires or high-ranking gov’t officials. Relax with the hyperbole, holy hell…
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That every billionaire and high ranking government official in this state is a deranged conservative who wants people to suffer and wants to do nothing for people is a sign this state is beyond help.
What victories has NC has versus its neighbors the last decade? The answer is none. In fact maybe in 20 years we can be near where Virginia is now. But y’all see Virginia as some sort of joke.
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