Economy

September 2, 2024 - Alice Driver talks about her new book "The Life and Death of the American Worker," an accounting of the lives and working conditions faced by poultry and meatpacking workers in Arkansas, where Tyson Foods is headquartered.

August 21, 2023 - Jeff Springman's suit raises questions about worker safety in the field, even as oil and gas workers have spent decades pushing for stricter safety standards. As the renewable energy industry grows, advocates continue to call for better policies.

July 27, 2023 - As the South becomes a hub for electric vehicle production, local resistance to a new Rivian plant in Georgia raises questions about who stands to benefit from these developments.

June 30, 2023 - The co-founder of Cooperation Jackson talks democratic organizing, the solidarity economy, and working against state violence in Mississippi’s majority-Black capital city.

May 23, 2023 - We spoke with workers involved in a successful organizing drive at a Starbucks store in Louisiana's biggest city to find out what they previously thought about unions, and how the effort has changed their thinking.

April 28, 2023 - Workers at a Tyson Foods chicken processing plant in Van Buren, Arkansas, walked out for several days this month, saying the company is putting their health and safety at risk — and is now shoving them out the door after hailing their loyalty through a deadly pandemic.

April 11, 2023 - Facing South recently spoke with Larry Spencer, an official in the United Mine Workers district that represents the over 1,000 miners who unsuccessfully struck against Warrior Met Coal in Alabama for almost two years. He discussed conditions for the returning miners, relations between the long-time workers and the scabs who replaced them, and how the union — now facing a decertification petition — is challenging the company's refusal to take back 41 strikers, many of them union officials.