strikes

April 28, 2023 - Workers at a Tyson Foods chicken processing plant in Van Buren, Arkansas, walked out for several days this month, saying the company is putting their health and safety at risk — and is now shoving them out the door after hailing their loyalty through a deadly pandemic.

April 11, 2023 - Facing South recently spoke with Larry Spencer, an official in the United Mine Workers district that represents the over 1,000 miners who unsuccessfully struck against Warrior Met Coal in Alabama for almost two years. He discussed conditions for the returning miners, relations between the long-time workers and the scabs who replaced them, and how the union — now facing a decertification petition — is challenging the company's refusal to take back 41 strikers, many of them union officials.

February 10, 2023 - While public support for labor unions in the U.S. is at its highest level in a half-century, the portion of Southern workers in unions did not grow last year, even though unions added new members. But strikes and other workplace protests in the region jumped by over 20%, showing growing labor activism.

November 28, 2022 - The Union of Southern Service Workers is fusing labor and human rights organizing to secure livable wages, stronger safety protections, greater control over work schedules, and new respect for the African Americans and Latinos who make up the majority of its members.

September 1, 2022 - When North Carolina tobacco companies began manufacturing cigarettes in the 1880s, they needed skilled rollers, so they turned to Jewish immigrants on strike at cigarette factories in New York City. The bosses thought the workers wouldn't dare organize in the union-hostile South, but they were proven wrong.

August 25, 2022 - Taiwanna Milligan, who helped organize a recent strike at the Dollar General store where she works in South Carolina, participated in a series of Worker Power Trainings held by Raise Up members in several Southern communities this summer. She shares what she heard from some of the workers who participated.

June 10, 2022 - Facing South talked with Kim Kelly, a labor reporter and author of "Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor," about the lessons from the past her book holds for workers organizing in today's increasingly diverse South.