As part of Southern trend, Elizabeth City workers strike for better pay
By Dante Strobino posted on July 7, 2021
Elizabeth City, N.C., strike, June 30
Durham, N.C.
After three years of receiving zero pay raises and working 16 months through a global pandemic with no recognition or hazard pay, city workers in Elizabeth City, N.C., staged a two-day work stoppage June 29-30. The Black-majority workers in the city’s Public Works and Water and Sewer departments were upset by City Council’s vote to deny their proposed raise this year.
Upon coming to work June 29, workers self-organized, loading up their work trucks and driving to City Hall, where they surrounded the building, honking their horns and clogging up traffic. They refused to work the entire day. They gave the city a deadline of 7:00 p.m. the next day to get it right. The next day, they all caught the “blue flu” at 10:00 a.m., clocked out and began a sit-down occupation of the sidewalk surrounding City Hall. Comm
Education workers organize the South
By calvin deutschbein posted on April 5, 2021
Elon, N.C.
Two years after voting by a 2-to-1 margin to unionize, on March 4 the embattled Elon Faculty Union finally forced the greedy administrators of Elon University to the bargaining table. EFU is Local 32 of the Service Employees Union, Workers United Southern Region.
Students for an Equitable Elon stage a banner drop in March 2020, one of many direct actions in support of the Elon Faculty Union.
A victory for all of us
The faculty union represents hundreds of adjunct and contingent faculty, a powerful presence of organized educators on this rural campus near Greensboro, N.C. The university sits in one of the most reactionary locales in the U.S., home to unusually violent voter suppression and family-separation actions by local law enforcement. U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, one of the leading architects of the Trump campaign to disrupt the 2020 presidential election, is a trustee o
NC university workers happy to be vaccine eligible, ready to get to place of normalcy Kate Murphy, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)
Mar. 3 North Carolina college and university employees, as well as students working on campus, are eligible for COVID-19 vaccines starting Wednesday.
Gov. Roy Cooper announced Tuesday that front-line essential workers, including college and university instructors and support staff, would be eligible a week earlier than expected, now that three COVID-19 vaccines are available.
Employees who are working in-person at their place of work, including staff who anticipate an imminent return to an in-person work setting, can make an appointment at any vaccination site in the state.