Economy
June 3, 2021 -
When workers at the progressive-themed, plant-based meat factory near Asheville, North Carolina, tried to organize a union last year, management turned to tried-and-true union busting strategies to defeat them. Workers were shocked by what ensued — but now one of them is sharing the story so others will be prepared.
June 1, 2021 -
Licolli co-founded the group Venceremos to organize poultry workers in Northwest Arkansas and now serves as its director, a position she previously held at the now-defunct Northwest Arkansas Workers' Justice Center. In this oral history interview, she talks to Facing South about her upbringing in Mexico, how her theater education plays into her organizing strategy, sexism's impact on worker organizing, and lessons she's learned through her work.
April 29, 2021 -
Three Democratic members of the evenly divided U.S. Senate have so far refused to sign on to the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, legislation endorsed by President Biden that would provide stronger protections for workers trying to form a union. Among the naysayers is Mark Warner of Virginia, the Senate's second-richest member and a venture capitalist with a nine-figure estimated net worth.
April 26, 2021 -
A bill to raise North Carolina's minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour has been reintroduced in the state legislature. Among those calling for its passage are certified nursing assistants including Cummie Davis of Chapel Hill, who writes about her experience trying to survive on poverty-level pay while doing an essential job.
March 26, 2021 -
Facing South recently spoke with Thomas Healy, author of "Soul City: Race, Equality, and the Lost Dream of an American Utopia." The book documents civil rights leader Floyd McKissick's pursuit of Black opportunity in the form of a Black-led model integrated community on a former slave plantation in Eastern North Carolina, and the lessons the quest and its failure holds for today.
March 23, 2021 -
The organizer who pioneered politically transformative get-out-the-vote efforts in Georgia is now using that existing infrastructure to get some of the state's most vulnerable residents vaccinated against COVID-19.
March 17, 2021 -
The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the ongoing loss of hospital beds in rural communities across the South. The greatest losses were in Tennessee — among the states that haven't expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The rate of rural hospital closures in non-expansion states is six times greater than in states that expanded the program.
