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SOUTHERN WORKER SCHOOL CHARTS COURSE FOR POWER  
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Southern Workers Assembly
June 30, 2024
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_ Nearly two hundred rank and filers who are developing a movement of
workers in the South that can build power to make the anti-union
politicians’ fears a reality gathered in Charlotte, NC on May 17 –
19 for the 2024 Southern Worker School. _

Southern Worker School Group Photo ,

 

Southern politicians have gone out of their way in word and action to
make clear they stand on the side of big business and racism as
they’ve recently lamented that the “Alabama [ie – Southern]
model for success is under attack” and vowing to “fight unions to
the gates of hell.”

Nearly two hundred rank and filers who are developing a movement of
workers in the South that can build power to make these politicians’
fears a reality gathered in Charlotte, NC on May 17 – 19 for the
2024 Southern Worker School. These convenings are the annual
organizing conference of the Southern Workers Assembly network, which
includes local workers assemblies, worker organizations, and other
workers from various sectors and states throughout the region.

As the upsurge in worker organizing and fightback continues to expand
– most notably represented in the UAW drives across the auto
industry – the 2024 elections loom and the broader social movement
to end the U.S. supported Israeli genocide in Palestine widens and
spread, the gathering came at particularly timely juncture to assess
conditions and develop united plans for advancing in this period.

“Being in a room with such a diverse group of workers, we can
consider that a real cross section of the American landscape. It felt
like a new beginning of the labor movement to me, a room filled with
people organizing to achieve justice in the workplace, from all walks
of life, to make sure we have justice for everyone regardless of race,
gender, etc,” remarked Jamie Muhammad, Vice President of the
International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1414 in Savannah,
Georgia. “It was powerful, too, to see so many people wearing
keffiyehs and showing solidarity with Palestine. Those are the type of
people who look at the news and are aware of everyone’s suffering
and want equality for everyone. I’ve never been in a room like that
before. When the working people in the South rise up and we come
together on a common cause, we can lead the rest of the nation where
it needs to go.”

This was the largest worker school convened by the Southern Workers
Assembly to date, and included delegations and participation from: El
Futuro Es Nuestro/It’s Our Future; Siembra NC; United Campus
Workers; UAW; ILA Local 1422; ILA Local 1414; Truckers Movement for
Justice (TMJ); UE Local 150; UE Local 111; Union of Southern Service
Workers (USSW); National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA); Carolina
Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment (CAUSE); Duke Graduate
Students Union (DGSU); National Nurses United; and several locals of
the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), among
others.

 BUILDING A MOVEMENT & WORKER NETWORKS

The opening session of the school kicked off only hours after the
result of the vote by Mercedes workers in Alabama on whether to join
the UAW was concluded. This opening panel discussion sought to offer
some assessment of the organizing across the South, while raising some
specific examples and practices from worker network building outside
the context of a solely NLRB election approach. 

The panel included Ashaki Binta from Black Workers for Justice (BWFJ);
Corey Hill, president of UAW Local 3520 and chair of the Daimler Truck
North America Council; Dominic Harris, president of the Charlotte
Chapter of UE Local 150; Miranda Escalante, Asheville Food and
Beverage Workers United (AFBU); and TaShira Smith, a founding member
of the Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW).

Ed Bruno, a member of the SWA Coordinating Committee, offered these
remarks at the discussion’s opening, saying: “The SWA
congratulates the UAW for the election at Volkswagen and Mercedes. The
vote counting doesn’t matter. What matters is the workers’ and the
UAW’s motivation, willingness, and resources to organize the
Southern auto industry.”

Bruno continued, noting, “The Southern auto industry will not be
organized one election at a time, nor will the hospital industry or
logistics or any industry. We encourage other unions to follow their
example. The UAW founding in the 1930s was based on sit-down strikes
that were multi-corporation, multi-location efforts to organize the
entire auto industry. That’s the way the modern labor movement was
formed. And that’s the way the South will be organized today.”

Ashaki Binta expanded on these points, drawing on the 40 year history
of Black Workers for Justice organizing workers in North Carolina,
noting, “Through our experience, we learned that traditional methods
of trade union organizing would not work in the South. Understanding
the political and economic structure of the South, that was built to
maintain the region as a cheap labor market for capital, and the
oppression of Black people in particular as the basis for that market,
impacting all other workers. Sixty percent of Black workers live in
the U.S. South. The question of building power for working people has
to be the objective and basis of our work. The experience of the UAW
is extremely important and we are looking forward to learning all that
we can from their work. Even so, there are still millions of workers
in the South that need to be organized.”

USSW, AFBU, and UE150 worker leaders all contributed lessons of how
they’ve developed worker networks that prioritize collective action
and movement building, utilizing this central orientation to win on
issues and grow their organizations.

Joining this discussion just over a week after the record contract won
by Daimler Truck North America workers was overwhelmingly ratified,
Local 3520 President Hill reminded everyone that, “We won a record
contract. But the war has just begun. The thing of it is, they always
change the game plan on us to keep us divided. Divided no more we will
be. When we stand together that’s where our strength comes from. We
took six locals and brought them together. Not the bargaining
committee, not the leadership, but the workers won that contract. They
proved they could set out and walk that line and do what they needed
to do. But we have a lot of work to do.” 

The remainder of the weekend focused on deepening sector-based
networks, sharing out organizing reports on lessons from workers
assemblies and workplace committees, political education, and
assessing interventions made by workers across the SWA network in
solidarity with Palestine – from organizing contingents in
demonstrations, education workers and others building solidarity with
student encampments, moving ceasefire resolutions through union locals
and city councils, and more.

“It was powerful to see how so many other workers are thinking like
me and fighting to make change in the workplace,” said Shenika
Brown, a truck driver from Memphis, TN, and a member of Truckers
Movement for Justice.

During the political education discussion, led by Abdul Alkalimat of
the SWA Education Committee, attention was given to analyzing and
assessing the political economy of the South. Alkalimat broke down the
concepts of the base – the productive forces – and superstructure
– the consumption of commodities/services, social reproduction,
ideas, etc – of the economy. In particular, there are many changes
occurring in the base of the Southern economy in this period, with
large capital investments in manufacturing and electric vehicle
production, that are worth the attention of worker cadre to understand
and incorporate into our strategic thinking.

In light of these developments, the Southern Workers Assembly has
recently launched a program aimed at recruiting workers to get jobs in
some of these growing, strategic sectors of the Southern economy
[[link removed]]. This program was discussed
in some detail during the weekend.

There was also a great deal of discussion of political power and how
it’s developed, in light of the 2024 elections. The Southern Workers
Assembly’s nine point Worker Power Program
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to make independent political interventions that are connected to the
primary objective of building organization and power in the workplace.

Workers from the logistics, manufacturing, public, building trades,
healthcare, education, and service sectors held breakout discussions
on Saturday afternoon, during which time they were able to share about
the work and fights they’d been engaged in and identify more
opportunities for coordination going forward. 

“At each of the past two SWA worker schools, there’ve been
industry breakouts where I’ve met multiple union brothers and
sisters from my sector. And these are members who’re already
committed, long-term, in seeing a real united working class force in
the South. An organization that can pull in building trades workers
like that is, frankly, rare. I come away from these weekends with
people who live states away but who I can consistently rely on for
educated strategies and resources. The value of that is
immeasurable,” said Chris Anders, a rank & file member of IBEW LU
666 in Richmond, VA.

At the November 2023 worker school, service and education workers
formed industry councils that have met on a semi-regular basis since
that time, and made plans to continue to coordinate coming out of the
most recent school. In addition, public sector workers from Virginia,
North Carolina, and South Carolina formed a pubic sector council that
intends to meet going forward.

“To see teachers and rank and filers from Amazon and other places,
even though we work in different industries to see and hear that we
have a common thread to be treated with dignity and respect was
powerful. We’re all fighting to make our employers recognize our
value and to assert that we do have a voice. To see all of us coming
together was amazing, united around a basic thread that we want to be
treated with dignity and respect and should be paid what we are worth.
We’re human beings, not robots,” Mary Hill, vice president and
co-founder of CAUSE, reflected. “I was especially encouraged to
build solidarity with migrant workers and to see so many young people
at the worker school. The group we brought from CAUSE was largely new
members. We’re not just fighting our own struggle at different
workplaces, we’re building a movement and it’s a legacy we’re
passing on to the younger generations coming behind us. It gives me
hope for the future to see younger generations getting involved in
struggles at their workplaces.”

The worker school contributed towards advancing the deepening of
worker networks across the region, and in addition to providing space
for exchanges and coordination among the ten active workers
assemblies, workers from more than half a dozen other cities were in
attendance and are making plans to begin building assemblies in their
cities coming out of the gathering.

The movement to organize the South marches forward.

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For more great photos of the Southern Worker School go to
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* Southern Worker School; Union Organizing; Unions in the South;
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