After a five-day election, 2,447 Amazon workers in Garner, N.C. voted against unionization. Had the election succeeded, Amazon’s RDU1 fulfillment center would have been the first unionized Amazon facility in the South. Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Equality, or C.A.U.S.E., the grassroots union hoping to represent these workers, pushed for $30 hourly wages, longer lunch breaks and additional vacation time within the fourth largest company in the world.
C.A.U.S.E. was started by RDU1 workers three years ago, and to gather even a third of the vote against a massive company known for aggressive union-busting is a win. Despite frustrations around the RDU1 vote failing, increased organizing activity in The Triangle is something we should celebrate and approach with optimism. Labor organization has been historically unsuccessful in North Carolina due to the hostile way the state and the South have treated unions and workers. Simply because it happened, any vote, even a losing one, is a good vote.
America’s long, fraught relationship with labor is especially apparent in the South. North Carolina, like the rest of the region, is one of 26 right-to-work states. Right-to-work is a labor policy allowing workers to choose whether or not join the union which represents their workplace. This often leads to decreased or stagnated wages and weakened labor relations between management and their employees. Misleadingly positive, RTW policies primarily serve the interests of business owners by preventing unionization.
In addition to being a right-to-work state, North Carolina also has employment-at-will, meaning employers can fire employees for any reason. Coupled with a low minimum wage and weak paid leave laws, also frequent across the region, the state is abysmal when it comes to worker protections.
Amazon is frequently in the news fighting against unionization — another Southern warehouse has also faced pressure to schedule a unionization vote recently. But it's not just a couple separate incidents.
Right now, on our campus, graduate students are rallying for fair wages and open dialogue with our administration through the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union, UE Local 150. Current stipends for graduate workers meet only 42 percent of the local living wage for a single adult. After delivering a petition with 2,000 signatures to Chancellor Lee Roberts, UNC graduate students organized a rally on Jan. 31 to deliver the petition straight to his office and make a public call for their demands. While administrations throughout the South are notoriously reluctant to unionization, workers remain determined to fight for the wages they’ve justly earned through their contributions to institutions.
Unions allow students to demand more livable compensation from their universities, lower health care premiums, larger childcare subsidiaries and more. Labor organization on campus is extremely important, not just for graduate students, but all employees. Success for UE Local 150, beside improving graduate students' wages, would affect other parties downstream, like the professors they assist and the undergraduates they teach.
In general, unions are crucial for ensuring fair, safe and equitable workplaces for all workers, regardless of union membership. They are a mechanism of collective bargaining, with union leaders elected to empower their fellow workers by negotiating with employers for better working conditions — democracy in action on the corporate scale. The material benefits of unionization for employees are apparent: according to the US Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, union members gathered $200 more a week in 2024 than their non-union counterparts and were able to bargain for better insurance and workplace safety.
Amid recent legislation passed by the federal government defunding industries and encouraging layoffs, unions are more important than ever. It is essential that workers have a platform to change workplace issues without risking their employment status. In the era of the ultra-wealthy, disappearing middle class and a drastic wealth gap, we need organized labor movements. Out of 50 states and the District of Columbia, North Carolina placed dead last in percentage of unionized laborers statewide, at 2.4 percent.
