They’re wielding new tactics with low-wage workers after decades of failed organizing efforts.
Labor groups like the Union of Southern Service Workers are trying out new tactics to convince workers about the benefits of collective bargaining — such as remaining members even if they switch jobs. | James Pollard/APUnions and their allies are ramping up efforts to convert an extraordinarily challenging demographic: low-wage workers in the anti-union South.
They’re trying unorthodox approaches that they hope can reverse decades of organizing failures. That includes organizing employees across different workplaces, wooing workers to join labor groups without traditional shop-by-shop elections and in some cases, taking direct strike action on employers. The Union of Southern Service Workers, an SEIU-backed group, is organizing low-wage workers from across the service industry. The National Domestic Workers Alliance, a non-union membership organization, is mapping blue-leaning Southern jurisdictions, such as Miami-Dade County, that could be open to enacting a floor of labor standards for homecare. That effort has already led to the passage of “Bill of Rights” legislation in 10 states and four cities.
“The innovation that the Southern service workers are showing all of us is a really important way to create a future where the unions are growing,” SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said in an interview.Even in arguably the most union-friendly climate nationwide in decades, however, these efforts face daunting odds.
The South has what a dozen organizers and experts characterized as a regional culture that has long proven resistant to collective bargaining. Workers lack deep union ties and corporations often relocate South to avoid organizing campaigns.
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