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	Workers Vanguard No. 878	13 October 2006

Sanitation Workers Battle for Union Rights

Raleigh, North Carolina

Fed up with long hours, low pay and regular abuse from supervisors and city managers, Raleigh sanitation workers staged brief wildcat strikes in mid-September. On two successive mornings, workers from all three sections of the department—garbage, recycling and yard waste—crowded the parking lot at the city’s Solid Waste Services facility instead of mounting their trucks, delaying pickups by a day or more. The evening of the second walkout, a majority of the more than 100 sanitation workers voted to join United Electrical (UE) Local 150, which represents around 3,000 public service workers statewide. The stand taken by these overwhelmingly black workers has sent ripples across viciously anti-union North Carolina and won them the support of other workers in the city and region.

North Carolina today is one of the most industrialized states in the U.S. but has the second lowest rate of unionization, after South Carolina. Going hand in hand with Jim Crow, reactionary “right to work” laws were enacted in North Carolina and elsewhere in the South following World War II to keep the region free of unions. The closed union shop in both private industry and public employment is banned by law and the 640,000 public employees are barred from striking. Collective bargaining for public employees is banned under a 1959 statute. With the rise of the civil rights movement, thwarting the unions was a means of reinforcing the segregation of black workers, who in North Carolina have historically held a large share of city and state jobs. The battle to organize the open shop South is intrinsically linked to the fight against racist discrimination.

Raleigh sanitation workers are outraged at having to toil under a “task” system in which they are paid for finishing a route whether it takes 14 hours or six. One striker told Workers Vanguard that the department was “run like a plantation.” During 100-degree heat over the summer, these workers suffered through marathon shifts with no additional compensation. In the days immediately before the walkouts, crews were still at work after nightfall. Though fast-growing Raleigh, the state capital, is one of the wealthiest cities in the state, the City Council had slashed the number of sanitation workers, intensifying the speedup.

In the aftermath of the work stoppages, the sanitation workers have picketed City Hall and continued to press their demands in meetings with the mayor. Their demands include an end to forced overtime, time-and-a-half pay for overtime, immediate hiring of all temporary city workers as permanent employees, an end to harassment by the bosses and the right to organize. The city has granted some partial concessions. The city has added six jobs and pledged to maintain six others that had been targeted for elimination. The widely despised solid waste director and operations superintendent were removed from their posts. Department bosses were granted the authority to pay overtime, although at their discretion. Plans were announced to make temporary jobs permanent, but only after six months’ probation. The sanitation workers’ gains have not gone unnoticed by other city employees, who will also benefit from the work-rule changes.

Until now, no Raleigh mayor had ever met privately with union representatives. However, the mayor is also talking separately with non-union workers, a setup for driving a wedge into this combative work force and undermining the workers’ power. Some are reluctant to join UE Local 150 and pay monthly dues because the law forbids cities from forming contracts with unions. Such anti-labor laws must be fought and defeated, and the key to victory is united class struggle against the capitalists and their government. While local and state Democrats have issued pious statements posing as “friends of labor” in response to the mayor’s meetings with the sanitation workers, the Democrats and Republicans are in fact partner parties of capital that enforce the racist, anti-union status quo.

The battle for union rights must flow from the standpoint of class against class. This struggle must include organizing immigrant workers from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, who are increasingly employed in city jobs in North Carolina, into the unions with full rights and protections. The unions must mobilize in defense of immigrant workers and fight for full citizenship rights for all immigrants. This is a crucial part of mobilizing labor’s power in struggle against capitalist exploitation.

To organize the South will require a labor leadership that actively champions black rights and fights in the interests of all the oppressed around a program of class struggle and the political independence of the working class. Such an organizing drive could give rise to a revolutionary workers party, showing the way forward in the fight to shatter the racist capitalist system.