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the South are leading the fight for a fundamental transformation of our economy and democracy aimed at re-writing outdated laws that have always held back working people and stopped them from gaining a voice through unions," said Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees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."

A case before the U.S. Supreme Court could have implications for the country's growing labor movement. Justices will hear oral arguments in Starbucks versus McKinney today to determine if the bar should be raised for the National Labor Relations Board when it seeks to impose court-ordered injunctions on companies.

David Groves, communications director with the Washington State Labor Council, said the Supreme Court could further undermine the power of the NLRB, the independent federal agency that protects employees' rights.

"We already have weak labor laws in this country that have such minor penalties for breaking union organizing laws that companies routinely do it, and this is another opportunity for them to weaken labor laws even further," he argued.

The case involves Starbucks' firing of seven employees in Memphis during their union campaign in 2021. The coffee company says it rehired the workers and denies wrongdoing. If the justices rule in favor of Starbucks, it could make it harder for the NLRB to seek court orders.

Groves said the law states that workers have a right to organize unions in their workplace without coercion or retaliation from their employers.

"That's all fine and good but if the penalty's not significant enough, then they'll just go ahead and break that law and consider it the cost of doing business if they have to pay a fine two years down the road," he explained.

Groves said his and other labor organizations support the passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize or PRO Act in Congress, which would strengthen labor laws, including providing greater authority to the NLRB.


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The U.S. House has approved a measure to expand the Child Tax Credit. It would help 16 million children from low-income families in Indiana and nationwide. Despite bipartisan support, the bill is stalled in the Senate. Advocates praise the credit's pivotal role in combating child poverty, pointing to its effectiveness in the past, and especially during the pandemic, when it was broadly expanded.

Candace Baker, an Indianapolis mother of 4, said the previous tax-credit expansion worked for her family, and she wants it reinstated.

"Having a child, and I had to get on some government-assistance programs. My grandmother never did because she just didn't want that stigma over her, but I utilized those services when I had a child. I didn't want to either, but I'm like, I need this support," she explained.

Congress approved expanding the Child Tax Credit in 2021. However, the expansion has expired, leaving families without vital assistance. As the Senate deliberates, pressure mounts on lawmakers to prioritize the needs of struggling families and secure passage. Opponents believe taxpayers who don't work should not be eligible. Some Republicans also contend the provision may incentivize parents to leave the workforce.

Families reeling from the pandemic received between $300 and $360 per month per child from the expanded tax credit. It lifted 3.7 million children from poverty. Baker currently works for a food bank in Indianapolis where she says she is able to help neighbors in need and give back to the community.

"Being able to be a voice for those who have no voice - that is my motto. Even though where you start, you don't have to stay there. So, that is my biggest motto that I stand on: You may start here, you may be on government assistance, you may be in poverty, but that does not have to be your end game," she said.

Families who benefited from the increased aid were more than twice as likely to pay their overdue rent during the initial stages of the pandemic. The Child Tax Credit did not pass in time for this year's tax deadline, and its prospects for the future are uncertain.


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Washington joins a handful of states to do away with mandatory meetings for employees on political or religious matters.

Sometimes known as captive audience meetings, the gatherings were seen as a way for employers to give their opinions on subjects like unionization, and held potential consequences for employees who didn't attend. Lawmakers passed a bill this session allowing workers to skip the meetings without repercussions.

Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Des Moines, a sponsor of the bill, said we live in a divided society where emotions run high on political topics.

"This bill simply protects employees to have a real choice on whether or not to attend a meeting called by their boss to be told about some political or religious issue," Keiser explained.

Keiser pointed out the legislation is nonpartisan. For instance, employers could not force employees to attend anti-union meetings, but also could not force them to attend a meeting about the importance of reproductive rights. The bill takes effect June 6.

Keiser noted the bill likely got across the finish line this session because of the uptick in union organizing and support for labor. She added there are widely known stories of Starbucks managers, for example, requiring employees to attend anti-union meetings while the employees organized the workplace.

"Employees have been forced to attend meetings to listen to the boss or the employer basically tell them why they shouldn't join a union," Keiser observed.

Washington is the sixth state to pass a law prohibiting attendance at captive audience meetings. Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota and New York have passed similar laws in recent years. Oregon passed a law allowing workers to skip such meetings without repercussions in 2010.


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