skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina s congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Myorkas.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Across the South, Black Workers Defy Labor History

play audio
Play

Wednesday, February 8, 2023   

By Herbert White for the Charlotte Post, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan for North Carolina News Service reporting for the Charlotte Post-Public News Service Collaboration.


Naomi Harris was fed up with work.


At a Mod Pizza store in Columbia, S.C., Harris despaired at the lack of air conditioning in the kitchen, racial bias in staffing and homophobic and racist language by management. Instead of quitting, she organized her colleagues in a work stoppage last June to demand change.


"Our shifts were segregated," Harris, 21, said. "The night shift, which was the hardest shift, was mainly Black people and then the morning shift was the white workers and just a sprinkle of the Black workers who couldn't work the night shift."


The slowdown worked. The restaurant's district manager was fired and a kitchen cooling system installed.


"It struck a nerve in my body, like in a good way," said Harris, who moved to a server job at Quaker Steak & Lube where she earns $2.13 an hour plus tips. "It just feels amazing to be doing something like this. It's powerful. It's something that everybody can benefit from. It's not selfish. They were just asking for what we deserve."


That success was Harris' first as a labor organizing, which historically been a difficult proposition in the South, especially for Black workers. Inspired, she joined with union leaders and in November co-founded the Union of Southern Service Workers, a multiracial advocacy group for workers in low-wage, high turnover jobs that have a legacy of racism.


"Black, brown and immigrant service workers across the South are leading the fight for a fundamental transformation of our economy and democracy aimed at re-writing outdated laws that have always held back working people and stopped them from gaining a voice through unions," said Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union. "Together in the Union of Southern Service Workers, workers across states and workplaces in the South will become an unstoppable force that no union-busting corporation or racist politician dare ignore."


That the USSW was formed in South Carolina - which has the lowest union membership rates in the nation at 1.7% - is telling. Black workers, who have historically underpinned the South's service economy, are empowering themselves as advocates for change.


"South Carolina, for example, is a right to work state that has historically been anti-union," said O. Jennifer Dixon-McKnight Ph.D., assistant professor of history and African American studies at Winthrop University. ... "Add the fact that you're talking about the lowest wage earners in the country, folks that really need their jobs and need to be able to work but at the same time have the least amount of protection in these spaces, have the least amount of resources, have the least amount of guidance and oversight in terms of helping them to navigate these difficult conversations."

Black labor, southern resistance


From the arrival of the first Africans in 1619, Black people have worked - usually with little or no compensation - to build the United States' economy.


Slavery yoked Africans to masters across the British colonies, but the South's agriculture-based economy put a premium on free Black labor. Those attitudes survive today and can be found in lower wages, including the custom of tipping (to prevent the formerly enslaved from earning more competitive salaries), to fewer opportunities for economic mobility.


As America industrialized after the Civil War, the South held on to its agrarian economy with the formerly enslaved key to the workforce. Wages were low and, hours long and Black people still had to contend with white hostility.


Even as union membership grew in the industrial North - which sparked the Great Migration of Black southerners in the early and mid-20th century, the South remained resistant and today only 6% of all workers in the region are unionized.


The South's long-held political stake in preventing union organization manifest itself in legislation that deters organization.


Every southern state has "right to work" laws that allow employers to fire workers for any reason, which leaves them vulnerable to the whims of their bosses.


"It's like modern day slavery without the whips and chains," Harris said. "When you think about it, it's the same thing because we're in these jobs more than we are at home. ... We spend all our time at a job getting paid dirt cheap and having to rub pennies together hoping we can make it stretch into $2 by the end of next week just to get something to eat."


Nationally, businesses are pushing back against organized labor, which is driving a decline in union density that is among the worst among industrialized countries. Still, Americans showed more support for unionization in 2022, according to a Gallup poll in which 71% of respondents approved of unions - the highest point nationally since 1965. Petitions for union elections rose by 53% in fiscal year 2022, the largest number of filings since 2016.

Post-pandemic labor force


The global COVID-19 pandemic shut down economies around the world, but in the U.S., the outbreak shifted the dynamic between employers and employees. Essential jobs were redefined in the workplace but as the labor market recovered, Black workers were left behind.


According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Black unemployment rate in 2021 was 8.6% compared to 4.7% for whites and 5.3% overall. In the meantime, concerns about contracting the virus exacerbated a growing employment and income gap.


"For the Black community in particular, I think about it in terms of if you have a group of people who have already experienced deficit and discrimination and exclusion and already grappling with being among the lowest wage earners in the country," Dixon-McKnight said. "So, there's already all these challenges that Black people as a community face going into the workplace. Not only ... grappling with these issues just on the basis of being Black in the workspace, these are the things that [Blacks have] had to face historically. When you add the challenges that come about as a result of COVID, not only am I dealing with the discrimination and exclusion and things of that sort because of my race, but now I'm dealing with all of that compounded by the threat or the danger of contracting COVID."


Southern workers are paid some of the lowest wages in the country, which means more challenges in an economy that favors companies while leaving employees undercompensated while raising productivity to record levels.


According to a 2022 report by Economic Policy Institute researchers Valerie Wilson and William Darity Jr., net productivity per work hour rose 69.6% between 1979 and 2019 while median wages for Blacks grew 5.2% compared to 20% for whites.


"Racial wage gaps also have widened amid the broader trend of growing wage inequality," Wilson and Darity wrote, "as black workers have reaped even fewer gains from increased aggregate productivity than white workers."


That's why unionization is an option more Black workers are embracing.


"Workers in the South face unique challenges tied to the legacy of racism that require a unique solution," said Eric Winston, a restaurant cook from Durham and a USSW member.


"We are building a union despite the fact that the rules are rigged against us as Southern workers. We are building a union by any means necessary and building it in a way that makes sense for us."



Herbert White wrote this article for the Charlotte Post.

Disclosure: The Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting contributes to our fund for reporting on Climate Change/Air Quality, Criminal Justice, Environment, and Water. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


get more stories like this via email
more stories
A report from the Tennessee HealthCare Campaign recommended the federal government needs to strengthen 340B drug pricing and other federal negotiation mechanisms to make needed medicines more readily available and less expensive for hospitals to purchase and administer. (Spotmatikphoto/AdobeStock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

A recent report examined how some rural Tennessee hospitals have managed to stay afloat despite financial challenges. The report includes interviews …


Social Issues

play sound

Earlier this month, a new Arizona Public Service rate hike went into effect and one senior advocacy group said those on a fixed income may struggle …

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…


Nearly 13 million Americans receive health coverage through unique plans under both Medicare and Medicaid. They are known as Dual-Eligible Special Needs Plans. (Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Medicare and Medicaid are key sources of health coverage for many Americans and some people qualify for assistance under both programs. With lagging …

Social Issues

play sound

New research shows more than six in 10 abortions in the U.S. last year were medically induced, and U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto - D-NV - is …

Social Issues

play sound

Missouri lawmakers are concerned with protecting people from the potential risks of the increasing accessibility of AI-generated images and videos…

Social Issues

play sound

A 2023 study from the University of Nebraska Medical Center concluded the number of Nebraskans with a mental health or substance abuse disorder has pr…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021