Just Economics’ Living Wage Program Coordinator, Sam Stites’ Op-Ed was published in the Asheville Citizen Times this week!
Still healing from years of back-to-back disasters, a hostile government that shows contempt for poor and working people, and an economy built on exclusion from economic prosperity and justice, the growing labor movement in Western North Carolina is showing us that a just and sustainable economy for all is within reach — if workers lead the way.
Across our region, workers are organizing in unions, assemblies, and workplaces to confront threats that are both constant and inescapable. They’re fighting back against threats like widespread wage theft, the lowest federally allowable minimum wage that hasn’t increased since 2009, and the $2.13 tipped-subminimum wage which is a relic of slavery.
They’re pushing back against state laws that still bar North Carolina public employees from collective bargaining, a Jim Crow-era rule designed to silence worker voices. They are resisting the rollbacks of regulatory measures and the Trump administration’s anti-labor appointments to the National Labor Relations Board that have left North Carolinians vulnerable in the workplace. And they are organizing against threats that put families under duress and accelerate poverty, like the lack of paid family leave for low wage workers, non-existent tenants protections or rent regulation, and one of the least robust unemployment insurance systems in the nation by amount and duration.
This deliberate suppression of worker power has left families under crushing strain. In North Carolina, the struggle is clear: anti-poor vs. anti-poverty. And as weak safeguards for workers and their families fade to nothing, worker power is being built to pick up the slack.
Consider Asheville Food & Beverage United (AFBU), which has mobilized food service and hospitality workers to confront halting wage theft, unionize workers, and build worker solidarity. The Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW) which has developed one of the most robust operations in the entire nation for organizing workers of chain businesses, launching countless labor actions and building a multi-racial worker’s movement that is representative of the workforce. Together, AFBU and USSW launched a joint relief fund after Helene to prevent displacement and be there for their members and communities — support that has proven crucial as federal and state relief has fallen dramatically short of supporting loss of income or protection from eviction.
Educators are also demonstrating labor’s power. The Asheville City Association of Educators became the first majority local in the state — representing teachers, custodians, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and all public school staff — and won a “Meet and Confer” policy to ensure public school staff have a formal representative voice to improve working conditions and student learning conditions. This past June, their colleagues in the Transylvania County Association of Educators celebrated their own victory after summoning school staff, parents, students, and advocates to secure the first raise in county supplements for all TCS employees in over a decade. In a state that denies collective bargaining rights for public sector employees, these victories in WNC show what organized school workers can achieve.
The movement doesn’t stop there. Among others, the Teamsters, Asheville Fire Fighters Association, Asheville Transit Union, United Steel Workers, American Postal Workers Union, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and National Nurses United (the largest NC union west of Charlotte) continue to fight in Western North Carolina for their members and those they serve. Tremendously, the American Federation of Government Employees are embroiled in a court battle to prevent stripping of the rights and powers of their union and members amid mass layoffs of federal employees stemming from the highest levels of government.
Non-union advocacy organizations like Siembra NC are acting and organizing on behalf of migrant workers who are especially vulnerable to wage theft among other grave circumstances that are multiplied by immigration status. The organization I work for, Just Economics, leads the WNC Workers assembly and is fighting for living wages and worker justice alongside workers every day.
This is more than effective resistance to inequality and injustice. Western North Carolina’s labor movement is modeling for our future — a future where solidarity, fairness, and shared prosperity and well-being define our economy. That future is not only possible, it is an imperative that is worth fighting for. This labor day is a call to action, to join, support, and celebrate the resistance to economic injustice that is being challenged head-on by a growing labor movement in Western North Carolina.