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North Carolina

Charlotte Students Lead Mass Action Against Immigration Raids

As federal agents swept through Charlotte, North Carolina, the first and most powerful pushback came from the students — the young people who showed what solidarity looks like in action. On Nov. 17, more than 30,000 Charlotte-Mecklenburg students stayed home in a coordinated “sickout” to protest a federal operation targeting immigrant neighborhoods. By the end of the week, more than 56,000 students had refused to attend school, making it one of the largest student-led actions against immigration raids anywhere in the country.

UE150 Condemns Border Patrol In North Carolina

UE150 condemns the Trump administration’s plan to deploy Border Patrol units to North Carolina. This decision is an alarming escalation and a direct threat to working people across our state. We denounce this action because we know exactly what it represents: a deliberate attempt to intimidate immigrant workers, silence community voices, and turn our communities into political props. North Carolina is not a border state. There is no emergency here that justifies a militarized federal presence. This move is nothing more than a manufactured crisis — a cynical performance meant to score political points while undermining the safety and dignity of the very communities that keep this state running.

In North Carolina, Immigrants Resist The US ‘Language Graveyard’

On a Friday evening in Emma, North Carolina, an unincorporated community west of Asheville, noise echoes across the Porvenir Community Center. Young children play in one room, laughing and shouting in Spanish and English. In the next room over, around 15 adults and children talk and sing in a different language – Hñähñu, an Indigenous language from the Mezquital Valley of Central Mexico.  Families sit together, leaning over textbooks and taking notes as the teacher, Abel González Bueno, writes example sentences on the whiteboard. At the end of the class, González leads his students in a traditional folk song. He says that music can be a great teacher, especially for his adult students who grew up speaking Hñähñu. 

North Carolina Electrical Workers Gear Up For Jobsite ICE Defense

I'm an electrical worker in IBEW Local 553 in Durham, North Carolina. We're one of the fastest growing locals in the South, with members in both construction and utility line work. Last month, I worked with a group of members to organize an immigrant defense training at our union hall, after persuading our officers to approve it. We worked with local immigrant organization Siembra NC to lead it. We had about twenty people there, half IBEW members and half from other organizations. Everybody agreed it was very useful. Siembra NC combined two trainings into one. One was ICE verification: training people to show up when they hear reports of ICE, and send out a confirmation or an “all clear” to a local network.

Postal Workers Rally Against Proposal To Privatize USPS

Charlotte , NC - Charlotte postal workers held another rally Sunday, speaking out against a proposal to privatize the U.S. Postal Service. Sunday's rally was held at the post office in Ballantyne and led by the local branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers. Leaders said it's all about protecting rural communities that rely on the Postal Service.  Conversations about privatizing the USPS have been ongoing and floated by President Donald Trump previously. "The NALC and all postal employees what the postal workers to know, and the president to know, that the Postal Service is not for sale," NALC Branch President Sylvin Stevens said.

Amazon Stokes Racial Divides In Lead-Up To Union Vote

Four thousand workers at a North Carolina Amazon warehouse are voting February 10-15 on whether to unionize with Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment. RDU1, in the town of Garner, outside Raleigh, would be the second unionized Amazon warehouse in the United States. It’s an ambitious campaign. The workers are organizing across racial and ethnic divides, through constant turnover, in deeply hostile terrain. At 2.4 percent, North Carolina’s union density is the lowest in the country. They’ll also need to overcome widespread fear of something Amazon is notorious for: retaliation.

Thousands Take To The Streets In Defense Of Immigrants Rights

Immigrants and their communities are leading the fight against the Trump administration’s attacks on democratic rights. Since Trump unleashed a series of ICE raids in his first days in office — ordering ICE and the police to arrest over 1000 people per day — thousands of people in the cities most targeted by the anti-immigrant offensive are taking to the streets, walking out of their schools, and shuttering businesses to show that immigrants won’t be criminalized and made to live in constant fear of deportation. The raids come on top of a barrage of anti-immigrant attacks launched by Trump on his very first day in office.

Closures In Quebec Show Amazon Is Scared Of Workers Organizing

The workers at a Whole Foods location in Center City, Philadelphia, voted to form the grocery chain’s first-ever union on Monday, marking an incredible victory for workers who have been organizing at the store for over a year. Whole Foods was bought by Amazon in 2017, and since then benefits, staffing levels, and working conditions have gotten worse. 130 workers voted in favor of unionizing with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), while 100 voted against. Through the union, workers are demanding a living wage (the starting salary is currently only $16/hour), better benefits, and more protections.

Members In Motion Changed The Game In Daimler Contract Campaign

Inspired by the success of the Big 3 strike, United Auto Workers members at Daimler Truck North America ran a very different kind of contract campaign this year than we ever had before. The 7,300 members at DTNA’s four North Carolina plants and parts distribution centers in Atlanta and Memphis were very active, informed, and involved in the bargaining process. This is not how the union had done things in the past. Here’s what we did differently, and some ideas on how to keep members in the loop and in motion for an effective contract campaign.

Asheville Blade Journalists Sue Over Illegal Arrests

A news co-op in North Carolina and two journalists convicted of trespassing offenses filed a federal lawsuit alleging that their constitutional rights were violated by Asheville Police Department officers. In December 2021, residents in the Asheville community gathered at Aston Park for five evenings to urge the City of Asheville to leave people without any shelter alone in the park after it closed at 10 p.m. They took a stand on Christmas, refusing to disperse. Police responded by sweeping the encampment and arresting six people. Two of the people arrested were reporters for the Asheville Blade—Matilda Bliss and Veronica Coit.

Grassroots Disaster Relief In Asheville

“We were pretty aware that the storm was going to be significant, but we had no idea it would be as significant as it was,” says Libertie Valance, a co-owner of Firestorm Books, the worker-owned bookstore in Asheville, NC that transformed overnight into a mutual aid hub following Hurricane Helene. After causing fatalities and catastrophic damage across the Southeast, Helene reached the Western North Carolina mountain city of Asheville in the early hours of Friday Sept. 27. Floodwaters cut off access to the city via Interstate 26, severely damaged the local water system, and left residents isolated without power or cell service.

Town Launches First US Climate Lawsuit Against A Utility Company

The small North Carolina town of Carrboro has initiated the country’s first climate accountability litigation against an electric utility. The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, claims Duke Energy waged a “deception campaign” in order to obscure the climate hazards of fossil fuels. This led to delayed action in curbing planet-warming emissions, which caused the costs of the climate action to increase. “We have to speak truth to power as we continue to fight the existential threat that is climate change. The climate crisis continues to burden our community and cost residents their hard-earned tax dollars,” said Mayor of Carrboro Barbara Foushee in a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity.

In Hurricane Ruins, North Carolina Food Workers Organize And Fight

Twenty-one days without running water. A week before any cell service or internet. Hospitals closed, and thousands of houses swept away. Not long after developers started trumpeting the city of Asheville, North Carolina, as a “climate haven” from coastal storms, the area experienced catastrophic flooding. Upland Tennessee and North Carolina were the hardest hit by Hurricane Helene on September 27. For restaurant workers, the crisis is still getting worse, says Miranda Escalante, a hotel bartender and co-chair of Asheville Food & Beverage United, an organization of restaurant workers. At least three-quarters have been laid off since the storm, she said, in what would have been peak season.

What Mutual Aid Groups Are Doing To Help Hurricane Survivors

Hurricane Helene, which was a Category 4 hurricane, hit on September 26 and claimed around 227 lives as of October 5, 2024. The hurricane is now considered one of the deadliest “of the modern era.” Besides destroying homes, businesses, roads, and bridges, it caused power outages for millions and left countless survivors without food and water. The hurricane has become a source of conflict and division, particularly concerning the federal government’s response to the catastrophe. Media outlets like PBS, U.S. News & World Report, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s Hurricane Rumor Response page have addressed what National Public Radio (NPR) called, “[r]umors, misinformation and lies” about this issue on October 7.

Our Fragile Infrastructure: Lessons From Hurricane Helene

Asheville, North Carolina is known for its historic architecture, vibrant arts scene and as a gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a favorite escape for “climate migrants” moving from California, Arizona, and other climate-challenged vicinities, until a “500 year flood” ravaged the city this fall. Hurricane Helene was a wakeup call not just for stricken North Carolina residents but for people across the country following their tragic stories in the media and in the podcasts now favored by young voters for news. “Preppers” well equipped with supplies watched in helpless disbelief as homes washed away in a wall of water and mud, taking emergency supplies in the storm.
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