Organize the South!

Excerpted from a talk given by Dante Strobino at the WWP National Conference, Nov. 15-16.

Dante Strobino WW photo: G. Dunkel

Barack Obama won the popular vote in North Carolina by 11,000 votes. This is the first time a Democrat won the state’s electoral college votes since 1976. Democrat Kay Hagan won the race for U.S. Senate, defeating incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole, for the seat once occupied by deeply racist, segregationist Sen. Jesse Helms, who held the post for 30 years. This seat had been in the hands of Republicans since 1973.

This change has happened for a number of reasons. I am going to focus on the conditions in the South–the flux of capital through the South, job loss as a result of the unorganized workforce and the vibrant movement growing in the South.

The South is the fastest-growing region in the country. Nine new political districts will be drawn here in the 2010 census. This means nine electoral college votes will be shifted to the South.

South Carolina has the fastest growing immigrant population in the country. North Carolina and Tennessee are next. Most African Americans live in the South.

Nationally, half of capital invested these days is not in production, but in finance. Charlotte, N.C., is the largest center of finance capital in the country. Bank of America, which just bought Countrywide and Wachovia, are headquartered there. Housing foreclosures disproportionately affect people in the South.

In 2009, Alabama will be the largest auto-producing state in the country. Major transportation hubs, roads and infrastructure are being developed particularly in Texas to facilitate trade among the U.S., Canada and Mexico without having to use heavily unionized ports with militant workers.

The South is the home of the military-industrial complex. Thirty-five to 45 percent of U.S. troops come from the South. Fifty-six percent of troops are based in the South, which is the only region where the number of troops is expanding. Forty-two to 50 percent of defense contractors are headquartered in the South. North Carolina is the most military-friendly state.

With all this intense development of industry, the military and capital, there is still a huge base of poor and unorganized workers who continue to become poorer. North Carolina has faced the most manufacturing job losses in the country in the past decade due to outsourcing of textiles.

Then, in October, Pilgrim Pride announced it was about to close shop and gut 20,000 poultry jobs in North Carolina. Last year, Pilgrim Pride was subject to ICE raids across the country that detained hundreds of immigrant workers. And the company closed a huge poultry plant in Siler City with mostly Latin@ workers.

Now that workers in Moncure are on strike at their plywood factory, the bosses have hired the fired poultry workers to cross the picket line. As Black workers walk the picket line, Latin@ workers are brought in right in front of them. This pitting of Black workers against Latin@s is not a new trick.

There are fewer union members in all the 11 Southern states combined than there are in the single state of New York. Still, over the last few years the trend in the South has been toward some high-profile labor campaigns that have gotten international attention.

Many if not most of these struggles involve immigrant workers. Recent struggles include the Houston janitors organizing and the Service Employees union winning a city-wide union contract that will more than double the wages of over 5,300 janitors and their families. The Farm Labor Organizing Committee had a recent victory over Mt. Olive Pickles, covering over 7,000 migrant workers. And FLOC has a current campaign against RJ Reynolds Tobacco.

Over the last two years the Immokalee Workers fighting for agricultural workers in southern Florida, mostly in tomato fields, have won better wages after confronting Taco Bell and Yum Brands, then McDonald’s. And very recently they won against Burger King.

In North Carolina, workers at Smithfield Hog Slaughtering Plant–the world’s largest hog slaughtering facility–have been struggling for 15 years for a contract. They recently entered negotiations with management after several powerful strikes, and after ICE raids designed to intimidate them.

Then there is a struggle that I am currently in the middle of: public-sector workers with UE Local 150 in North Carolina and Local 160 in Virginia. These are the two states that alone deny public sector workers the right to collectively bargain.

Groups like the Black Workers for Justice and the Mississippi Workers Center have been involved in vibrant, visible campaigns that have galvanized the community and religious leaders in supporting many workers’ struggle. In North Carolina, there has been great motion around fighting for a People’s Agenda with a coalition of 81 organizations, including UE 150 and BWFJ and spearheaded by the NAACP, but led by other organizations of oppressed people and workers.

In February 2007 and again in 2008, 5,000 to 7,000 oppressed people and workers took to the streets around this agenda, which includes collective bargaining for public workers, addressing racist chapters of North Carolina’s history, jobs, uplifting historically Black colleges, health insurance, immigrant rights and to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since the last march, Black Workers for Justice has been pushing for and building local People’s Assemblies throughout the state. In Raleigh we have held four assemblies, the first with over 100 people. These assemblies have been composed of rank-and-file workers, churchgoers and folks who otherwise have never been involved in organizing or fighting back.

We leafleted and built for these assemblies at every Obama rally, at college campuses, at workplaces, in our union meetings. Assemblies have also taken place in Chapel Hill and Rocky Mount, and other forces are stepping in and building around the People’s Agenda.

In December there will be a Southern Human Rights Organizing Conference in Durham, N.C., attracting workers, community members, students, youth, faith-based organizations and many from throughout the South to continue this process. We will be touring the Duplin County hog lagoons on African-American land and discussing a movement fighting environmental racism.

Comrades, it is time to organize the South!