The Southern Worker Justice Campaign Needs Your Support TODAY!
Help us build Black worker power during Black August!
The Southern Workers Justice Campaign is standing shoulder to shoulder with Black public sector workers as they fight critical battles for good wages, safe working conditions, and job security across the US South.
Recently, we’ve won major victories. In 2022, SWJC helped city workers in Charlotte, NC win a minimum wage of $22 per hour. This month, we won passage of a law establishing Civil Service Boards, which protect workers from unfair disciplinary actions, in Greensboro and Winston-Salem – though the bill was changed at the last minute to exclude Black-majority city departments. This year, we advocated successfully for the City of Durham to place the repeal of NC’s ban on public sector collective bargaining
on their list of legislative priorities.
We’re winning in Virginia, too. In 2021, we won the right for municipalities to pass ordinances allowing public sector workers to unionize. Since then, city workers in nine localities have won ordinances to form public sector unions.
These victories deserve to be celebrated. But they are just the beginning.
We see a major opportunity in the Black-Belt Hampton Roads area in Virginia. Last week, two Black worker union members were appointed to the Collective Bargaining Task Force in Virginia Beach, the state’s largest city, to help craft an ordinance on unionization.
SWJC needs your support NOW to continue to follow up on our successes as well as get this ordinance passed in Virginia Beach this fall. Please help us reach our goal of raising $50K to support the organizing work to achieve another victory. That would put SWJC and city workers in the position to be able to seize the moment and carry that victory to other Black-majority cities in Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News.
Will you join us in building power for Black, Brown, and immigrant public sector workers in Virginia and across the US South?
(Pictured above: UE Virginia Beach City Workers Union members at an organizing blitz August 7th - 11th along with community and labor allies, such as those from Tidewater Workers Assembly)
The Southern Worker Justice Campaign was founded in 2021 by the UE Research and Education Fund (UEREF) to support Black, Brown, and immigrant public sector workers in the US South as they struggle against the economic legacy of Jim Crow. This campaign grew from UE’s long history of working creatively to organize public sector workers in the South despite a lack of collective bargaining rights. By establishing partnerships with labor, community, and faith organizations, our grassroots organizing has chipped away at the state’s power and won big for workers. We focus on building worker power in North Carolina and Virginia, because these states are seen as a bellwether for the South. They have the will to change and capacity to lead change across the region.
Worker Testimonials
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“The Southern Worker Justice Campaign has helped city workers in North Carolina through organizing and building workers' power. This is an important part of our history. By learning our history it encourages us to continue to come together to have a voice on the job and to take action to win real changes.”
BRYCE CARTER, Street Maintenance Worker, City of Greensboro
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“The Southern Worker Justice Campaign has helped teach city workers how to communicate with our co-workers to build a better workplace, win better wages and improve our conditions. Racial discrimination in our society is only getting worse, and it starts from the top. This campaign has helped us understand how to change that.”
TERRY GREEN, Water Distribution Worker, City of Virginia Beach
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