Amazon worker’s efforts in Garner, N.C., will help workers across the entire state and South.
By Gwen Frisbie-Fulton
While I’ve spent most of my life in the South, and most of that in North Carolina, I did spend a few years in Indiana. There was a lot to get used to. I had to weigh down the back of my truck and learn how to drive in the snow. I had to brace myself for the weekly test of the tornado siren that shook my neighborhood every Friday at noon. I learned that Hoosiers say “pitch-in” instead of “potluck.”
One of the things I didn’t have any trouble adjusting to was how central unions were to local life. There was a steelworkers’ bar in my neighborhood where workers gathered after their shifts but welcomed me in so long as I’d round out their team for a game of darts. On my bike ride to work, I passed a union hall that operated as a neighborhood food pantry. On Sundays, I would often be invited to a “pitch-in” at my neighbors’ which always included their union family.
Here in the South, unions are a distant concept. Only 5 percent of Southern workers belong to a union, and only 2.4 percent in North Carolina, the lowest in the entire country, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. We’ve long branded our region as a union-free zone and courted big corporations with the promise that we will keep unions out of their factories, mines, and plants.
That’s why it’s big news that Amazon workers in Garner, N.C., are voting on their union this week.
All Southern states are “right-to-work” (RTW) states — meaning workers have the right to choose whether or not they are a part of a union.
At first blush, this sounds good to me. I generally want more, not less, freedom and choice in my life.
But the impact on our collective lives is that workers in RTW states are paid 3.2 percent less than workers with similar characteristics or about $1,670 on average less per year for a full-time worker, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Because of the impact of “right-to-work” on both wages and benefits of local workers, Michigan repealed its status as “right-to-work” just last year.
“Right-to-work” has always been a cruel euphemism, as it provides no rights and does nothing to guarantee work.
On the contrary, a union does both of these things. Unionized workers have support and help when their bosses misuse their power, threaten them with disciplinary actions or, worse, termination. Since non-union workers are hired “at will,” they can be fired for any particular reason. A union worker can only be terminated for “just cause”— meaning unions are securing your right to work far better than any RTW state is.
As corporate profits have soared for NC businesses, workers are wondering why their wages and benefits aren’t increasing too — after all, they are the ones doing the actual work, making and shipping products. Corporate profits reached an all-time high last year in the U.S., reaching $3.1 trillion in the second quarter of 2024. Surely that’s enough to pass more to their workers?
But instead of raises, working people’s real wages, in terms of purchasing power, have mostly remained stagnant since 1978.
Embarrassingly, North Carolina ranks 52nd (because Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. are included) as the worst place in the US to work, according to OxFam. We scored 51st in wage policies and worker protections.
I guess this is where the “right-to-work” lands us: A tipped wage of $2.13/hour and no heat safety standards for the many North Carolinians who do outside work.
Workers in Garner, N.C., are taking all of this head-on. There are just under 5,000 workers at Amazon’s RDU1 facility and they are citing safety, work conditions, and pay, as their top concerns. While the National Labor Relations Board gives a union effort a full year to get the signatures of 30 percent of the employees to bring the union to a vote, Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment (CAUSE) surpassed this threshold within a few quick months.
The voting starts this week of February 10. If the vote is successful, Amazon’s RDU1 fulfillment center would be the first to unionize in the South.
Amazon’s fear is palpable: In December they fired a lead organizer in the unionization effort and later had other organizers arrested while they served food and promoted the union outside the building, according to media reports.
I’m rooting our workers on. When workers anywhere win protections and wage increases, it impacts the market all across the state. I know it’s an uphill battle to unionize in a place like North Carolina, especially up against a powerful company like Amazon, but I figure if they win — well, then, we all win.
