COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) – More than 100 service industry workers gathered Friday in the state capital of South Carolina, the country’s least-unionized state, to launch new unions and promote labor across the South. I tried to encourage organization.
The Southern Service Workers Union hopes to win remedies for a series of grievances common throughout a region historically hostile to the union. They work in homes and other places and are broadly involved in the service industry as a whole.
Esshawny Gaston, a Captain D employee in Durham, North Carolina, who helped plan a union launch in Columbia, said: “We have to stand up for each other.”
Gaston, a mother of 25, said she has faced the same problem in multiple service industry jobs. For example, wage theft, poor personal protective equipment, and dangerous heat. She said the problem is more serious than any company and requires a broader effort.
Friday’s launch came amid America’s highest approval ratings for a trade union registered by Gallup polls since 1965 and came at the end of a week full of labor organizing activity.
Tens of thousands of academic workers across the University of California system quit work on monday, demand better wages and benefits.Starbucks employees want better pay, more headcount went on strike on thursday In over 100 stores in the US.
USSW organizers are trying to complement rather than compete with existing movements like Starbucks Workers United. The group joins nearly two million members of the Service Employees International Union, whose demands include better wages, fair grievance processes, safe workplaces, medical benefits, and consistent scheduling.
A wide group of labor organizations attended the launch. Local groups, including his AFL-CIO in South Carolina, provided assistance. Mary Kay Henry, president of the International Union of Service Workers, was on the scene.and California activists fought for state-led measures in the state Crowds gathered to give fast food workers more power and protection.
However, the political and legal structure of the South has long prevented such organizing. Prohibited labor contracts requiring payment of This business-friendly reputation has helped Southern politicians reach out to large employers to create more jobs.
The South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, which represents business interests and opposes the $15 minimum wage, declined to comment when asked to respond to the union’s launch.
South Carolina has a union membership rate of 10.3{ea2cba5bdf6fe62bbe85e24807814144a71e77d3ae7311fbc27a008558d1372c} in 2021, compared to 1.7{ea2cba5bdf6fe62bbe85e24807814144a71e77d3ae7311fbc27a008558d1372c} nationally, according to U.S. Labor Department statistics.
Henry said the environment has made the South the country with the lowest wages and the least protection in the United States.
Underlining union activism are groups such as Raise Up the South, the southern chapter of Fight for $15, and Union, which was founded in 2012 by American fast food workers calling for a higher minimum wage. 10 years of organizing by
“A multi-ethnic, cross-industry movement committed to fighting for a living wage, fair working conditions and a voice in the workplace has emerged from all the work being done in a remote city.” Henry said. “But now workers want to unite across cities, across industries.”
Labor law professor Jeff Hirsch at the University of North Carolina said the area has a lower union density, so efforts should be scaled up in the South compared to areas where people are more accustomed to organized labor. may become more difficult.
Some workers spoke of families who mistakenly believed Southern states had outlawed union organizing. According to activist Brandon Beecham, an employee of Panera in Atlanta, the area is more “repressive,” but workers in the South are “much more combative,” he said.
Other trends may favor unions. Mr Hirsch said the national labor shortage had given workers some leverage and employers may be less inclined to retaliate by firing union members. While popular collective action theory suggests that larger units are harder to organize, Hirsch said large and diverse groups beyond employers can be “very powerful.” .
“Wide organizing in the South has been the holy grail of the union movement for some time,” Hirsch said. “I would remain skeptical just because of history. But if they could get in, it would be very big.”
The new focus on the region comes from a desire to confront the anti-union attitudes the organizers say are steeped in Jim Crow’s legacy. Previous efforts to achieve widespread unionization throughout the South have failed, but supporters have been bolstered by past multi-ethnic labor movements.
One of them, an effort to unionize tobacco workers in North Carolina in 1946, was successful with the help of black churches, hoping to build support for the USSW among community organizations and churches. said Dorian Warren, co-president of the Center for Community Change.
Organizers noted that the 1969 Charleston strike, in which African-American women won pay increases and a more transparent employment system, did not gain union approval.
“There is indeed a deep Indigenous heritage in the South of organizing in multi-ethnic ways, especially to overcome anti-union and anti-black sentiment,” Warren said. I think this initiative is exciting because the organizers and organizers know and build on that history.”
Copyright 2022 AP. all rights reserved.
