labor

September 19, 2019 - Workers from across the low-wage economy convened in Durham, North Carolina, recently to discuss how to build on victories in the fight for a livable wage and union rights in the region.  

August 29, 2019 - Strikes and walkouts helped many teachers across the South secure pay raises this school year. But the South still invests relatively little in public education compared to the rest of the country.

February 2, 2018 - Despite losing two high-profile organizing campaigns in Mississippi and South Carolina last year, labor unions gained 130,000 members in the South in 2017.

September 22, 2017 - MaryBe McMillan, who this month was elected the first woman president of the North Carolina AFL-CIO, talks to Facing South about why unions are important today, how they can win in the South, and labor's key role in building a progressive political movement.

August 11, 2017 - Labor lost a high-profile campaign to unionize auto workers at Nissan plant in Mississippi last week. But the union says it isn't going away, pointing to other historic Southern labor drives that often took multiple elections to win.

March 30, 2017 - At the time of his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis, Tennessee, preparing to march with the city's striking sanitation workers. Labor protests on the anniversary of his death next week will continue the work he was doing during his final days to connect race and class.

July 21, 2016 - Half a million eligible voters have moved to North Carolina in the past five years. They are bringing new views to the state while at the same time grappling with its complicated new voting requirements.

June 2, 2016 - The hospitality industry is thriving in the tourist mecca of Nashville, Tennessee, but the people who do the hard work of keeping the city's hotels clean are not sharing in the prosperity and often face appalling work conditions, a new report finds.

May 19, 2016 - Wilna Destin of Florida is leading a struggle for economic justice while also creating room for Black women's leadership.

February 5, 2016 - Organized labor has made surprising gains in a region where unions face some of their toughest obstacles, new federal data shows. But defending workers' advances in the South's hostile political climate will require a long-term organizing commitment.