This lightly edited article was published as a Feb. 16 report at southernworker.org, Statements are testimony given to the writer by participants in the Southern Workers Assembly Day of Action.Durham, North Carolina Gloria Lee, a former Amazon worker, spent her Feb. 16 afternoon leading chants and talking to Amazon workers…
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