{"id":12849,"date":"2024-04-26T23:27:22","date_gmt":"2024-04-27T03:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=12849"},"modified":"2024-05-06T00:41:18","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T04:41:18","slug":"southern-autoworkers-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2024\/04\/southern-autoworkers-on-the-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern autoworkers on the rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>t starts to surface in the South in April. It’s rare and synchronized. It has been alive underground for decades, preparing, growing stronger within the grassroots. They’ve already started calling it alien<\/em>, a foreign invasion<\/em> (bless their hearts), though clearly it comes right from our soil.<\/p>\n

No, it ain\u2019t the aligned cicada brood, about to blanket the South (and beyond) in a manner that hasn\u2019t been seen in two centuries. It\u2019s unlikely to leave behind a fragile shell, or be crushed by boots or gone by summer. Yet something just as extraordinary is happening across the South: Thousands of workers are threatening to strike.<\/p>\n

In North Carolina, more than 7,300 members of the UAW are currently locked in a high-stakes contract struggle with the multinational company Daimler Truck North America (DTNA). The union\u2019s master contract was set to expire on Friday, April 26, at midnight. Unless workers received an acceptable contract offer from management by then, they would walk off the job at DTNA\u2019s four big heavy-truck and bus plants in North Carolina, as well as at two smaller parts-distribution facilities, one in Memphis and one in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

\"An
Members of UAW Local 5287 gather en masse in the cafeteria at the Thomas Built Buses C2 during break time to show their union pride. Image by UAW Local 5287.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The struggle at DTNA, which takes place within the context of an ambitious campaign by the UAW to organize the all-important Southern auto industry, has major implications for the class struggle in the South and across the country. If workers at DTNA are able to secure a victory, this could provide impetus to other workers to stand up and fight back. Within this context, several unions and workers\u2019 organizations in North Carolina and beyond have announced their solidarity with the DTNA workers in their struggle for a new contract and their efforts to win justice, dignity, and a better life for working-class people.<\/p>\n

This article shares the voices of these autoworkers on the precipice of their strike, as well as the voices of public-school teachers from the same communities, who are working to build solidarity with UAW workers at DTNA. The teachers are also struggling to overturn a Jim Crow-era law on the books in North Carolina that bars state, county, and municipal employees from bargaining contracts with their employers.<\/p>\n

The South could be on the verge of its largest open-ended strike in decades. No matter what happens, it\u2019s clear that workers in North Carolina are on the move.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that the South is the worst region for workers in the United States. From the lowest wages to a dearth of worker protections to the crippling denial of a right to organize, the ruling class has the South in a stranglehold.<\/p>\n

Nowhere are the conditions worse than North Carolina. In last year\u2019s report<\/a> by the U.S. affiliate of Oxfam, North Carolina once again ranked last\u2014even 52nd behind Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico\u2014in the \u201cBest and Worst States to Work in America 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n

Workers across the whole region are hamstrung by \u201cright-to-work\u201d laws, and North Carolina still clings to a Jim Crow-era law that bans collective bargaining for the state\u2019s hundreds of thousands of public employees. (Even the United Nations has called for its repeal<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

As part of the capitalist class\u2019s efforts to impose a \u201crace to the bottom\u201d and undermine conditions for all workers, corporations use the anti-labor environment in the South to their advantage. The South has been a key site of capital investment in manufacturing in recent years\u2014in no small part because employers know that the area is conducive to the maintenance of high rates of surplus labor value extraction. North Carolina <\/a>in particular has been the site of a major manufacturing boom in various critical sectors, including EV auto, semiconductors, military\/defense production, and other sectors.<\/p>\n

All too often, when workers organize and engage in struggle, they are forced not only to fight against their bosses, but also against top regional politicians, as well.<\/p>\n

On April 16, the eve of the successful vote by Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to join the UAW, Republican governors from six states across the South banded together to release a joint statement<\/a> \u201cin Opposition to United Auto Workers (UAW)\u2019s Unionization Campaign.\u201d As transparent as it is wretched, the governors wring their hands against the \u201coutside influence\u201d that threatens \u201cthe values we live by.\u201d (Not least, the governors are clutching their pearls\u2014and their top-donors\u2019 profits\u2014by pointing out that the UAW \u201cproudly call themselves democratic socialists.\u201d)<\/p>\n

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DTNA workers rally to show their solidarity in their fight for a strong contract. Image by United Auto Workers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s no surprise that in the Oxfam report, the governors\u2019 six states\u2014Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas\u2014all rank in the bottom eight worst states to work in the country (joined, of course, by North Carolina). Yet they rush to hang their hat on alleged shared values that for the ruling class, ensure power and for the working class, subjection.<\/p>\n

In an article about the Volkswagen workers\u2019 vote in the New York Times<\/em> on April 19, Jamelle Bouie writes<\/a>,<\/p>\n

It is no shock to see conservative Republicans opposing organized labor. But it is difficult to observe this particular struggle, taking place as it is in the South, without being reminded of the region\u2019s entrenched hostility to unions \u2014 or any other institution or effort that might weaken the political and economic dominance of capital over the whole of Southern society.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bouie then correctly couches the current struggle in the \u201cunbreakable addiction of Southern political and economic elites to no-wage and low-wage labor,\u201d adding that: \u201cBefore the Civil War, of course, this meant slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many in the South, and of course for Black workers in particular, this cruel through-line embodies the elites\u2019 \u201cvalues\u201d far better than anything they supposedly share with the masses.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

On April 19, workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga overwhelmingly voted<\/a> to join the UAW. In mid-May, workers at a Mercedes-Benz factory in Vance, Alabama, outside of Tuscaloosa, will also get a chance<\/a> to join the union.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not only unionization campaigns that are igniting the labor movement in the South in a way that hasn\u2019t been seen in many of the workers\u2019 lifetimes. Workers are ready to strike, too.<\/p>\n

The UAW has a master agreement across six Daimler Truck North America (DTNA) plants in the South. In North Carolina, these include:<\/p>\n