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North Carolina

‘Hard-Won Movement Victory’: MVP Extension In North Carolina Halved

January 1, 2024 Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams. , , ,
Frontline critics of the Mountain Valley Pipeline celebrated after Equitrans Midstream revealed Friday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that the distance of the proposed Southgate extension project has been cut in half. The partially completed MVP project—long delayed by legal battles until congressional Republicans and President Joe Biden included language to fast-track it in a debt limit deal earlier this year—is set to cross 303 miles of Virginia and West Virginia. The MVP Southgate extension into North Carolina was supposed to be 75 miles, but the filing details plans for a redesigned 31-mile gas project that "would include substantially fewer water crossings and would not require a new compressor station."

Buncombe County Rezoning For Raytheon, Genocide

December 7, 2023 David Forbes, Asheville Blade. , , , , ,
The Buncombe County commissioners are set to give Raytheon a massive rezoning, over 760 acres owned by Biltmore Farms will be converted from commercial and residential zoning into offices, warehouses and other infrastructure for the giant plant the weapons company is building. The area is huge, over seven times the size of downtown Asheville. It’s the largest rezoning in Buncombe County’s history. Importantly it takes away land designated for things like housing, which this area is of course famous for having no shortage of whatsoever, and instead gives a massive company’s massive factory even more.

UN Experts Allege Human Rights Violations By PFAS Chemical Giant

November 29, 2023 Olivia Rosane, Common Dreams. , , ,
United Nations human rights experts have expressed concerns over "alleged human rights violations and abuses" against people living along the lower Cape Fear River in North Carolina due emissions of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, from a Fayetteville chemical plant. Five U.N. experts signed letters to Chemours—the plant's current operator—as well as DuPont, Corteva, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Dutch environmental regulators. The action marks the U.N. Human Rights Council's first investigation into an environmental problem in the U.S., The Guardian reported Tuesday.

North Carolina Anti-DEI Law Casts Pall Over Asheville Reparations Plan

November 6, 2023 Brentin Mock, Bloomberg.com. , , ,
Roughly 200 people gathered at the University of North Carolina at Asheville recently to discuss the city's commitment to local reparations. It was the first summit of its kind and an important step in Asheville's plan to compensate Black residents for decades of structural racism. As the city ramps up its reparations effort, the state of North Carolina is moving in a reverse direction, with state legislation seeking to limit discussions about racism, especially in government and academia. A new law passed in June forbids any employee of the North Carolina state government – which includes the University of North Carolina system – from discussing racism-related concepts, particularly in hiring practices.

North Carolina Sanitation Workers Strike For $5K Bonuses

October 8, 2023 Ben Carroll, Labor Notes. , , ,
“We’re here to make a stand. At least 40 trucks should be on the road right now, and as far as we know, no trucks have gone out this morning,” said Durham, North Carolina, sanitation worker Christopher Benjamin, flanked by 100 sanitation and other city workers at a September 6 press conference. This was the first morning of a six-day strike by the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union (United Electrical Workers, UE, Local 150). During the six-day “stand down,” as they called it, sanitation workers would show up to the yard each morning and refuse to take out the garbage and recycling trucks, instead holding meetings and rallies in the parking lot throughout the day.

Workers In The South Aren’t Letting Anti-Labor Laws Stop Them

September 21, 2023 Mindy Isser, In These Times. , , , ,
Even though strikes are illegal for public sector workers in North Carolina, the difficult and sometimes dangerous work — coupled with low wages and the rising cost of living — led Perry and his co-workers to refuse to get in their trucks to pick up trash on September 6. The action reflects growing labor agitation in the South — a region where union organizing and striking are exceptionally challenging, but workers are nevertheless coming together to improve their working conditions. The day before the action, on the evening of September 5, sanitation and other city workers packed the Durham City Council meeting to present a petition demanding an immediate $5,000 bonus, payment for all work done outside job titles, and hiring all temporary workers as permanent.

If The Police Can Decide Who Qualifies As A Journalist, There Is No Free Press

June 2, 2023 Eleanor Goldfield, Truthout. , , ,
On a cold Christmas night in 2021 in the picturesque mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina, The Asheville Blade journalist Veronica Coit sat in a police station waiting to be booked. A police officer motioned toward Coit and said, “She says she’s press.” The magistrate responded: “Is she real press?” “In that very moment, he could’ve decided that we were press, which we were. The magistrate has the legal right to say ‘no’ [to booking someone].” But the magistrate didn’t exercise that right. Both Coit and their colleague Matilda Bliss were processed for trespassing while covering the eviction of unhoused people at Aston Park in Asheville.

State Bills Would Eliminate Long-Term Job Security In Higher Education

April 29, 2023 Olivia Wood, Left Voice. , , , ,
Last Tuesday, Republican legislators in the North Carolina state house of representatives proposed H.B. 715, the so-called “Higher Ed Modernization and Affordability Act.” Its actual purpose is to destabilize academic jobs and exert political surveillance over North Carolina’s sixteen public universities and 58 public community colleges. Last Thursday, the Texas state senate passed a similar bill, S.B. 18. The North Carolina bill has several provisions, but the prospective elimination of tenure is getting the most attention. Under this provision, the tenure system would be eliminated for all new hires from July 2024 onward, and all future faculty would be employed at-will or on fixed-term contracts between one and four years long.

2023 Southern Worker School: Organizing A Workers Assembly

April 11, 2023 Southern Workers Assembly. , , ,
The Southern Workers Assembly is excited to share that we will be convening a Southern Worker School in Charlotte, North Carolina on April 21 through April 23. The theme of the spring gathering is “Organizing a Workers Assembly from A to Z.” The school will focus primarily on putting forward a methodology for developing workers assemblies, drawn from our experience on the ground, and the role they play in building a social movement oriented infrastructure to organize and express worker power in the South. This will constitute the majority of Saturday’s program, combining both political discussion and more concrete skills-based training.

The Life-Threatening Consequences Of Rural ‘Maternity-Care Deserts’

February 3, 2023 Sarah Melotte and ShelHarris, In These Times. , , ,
North Carolina - As her husband drove through Western North Carolina’s winding mountain roads in December 2018, Katlyn Moss repeated instructions to him in case something went wrong. It was nighttime and snowing, and Moss was nine months pregnant. At the time, she was also an OB-GYN nurse. As her husband drove through the snowy terrain of North Carolina’s mountain region, Moss rehashed their plan for what to do if she went into labor during the 107-mile drive from her home in rural Clay County to Mission Hospital in Asheville. “I had a conversation with my husband, like, ‘If we deliver on the side of the road, this is what you’re responsible for, and this is what we’re going to do, and this is who you should call,’” Moss said. Recounting her experience last November on a mild morning in Hayesville, Moss said she knows several women from rural parts of the state who have similar delivery stories.

A New Doctors’ Union In The South Is A Model For Health Care Organizing

October 24, 2022 Jonathan Michels, Portside. , , , ,
North Carolina - Each day on his commute to the clinic, Dr Crister Brady traverses the rolling farmland of Eastern North Carolina, gliding past the neon-green tobacco fields where many of his patients live and work. Brady’s clinic, the Prospect Hill Community Health Center, is one of ten federally qualified health centers operated by Piedmont Health Services Inc. The nonprofit provides comprehensive primary care services to patients who are uninsured or who receive coverage from Medicaid and Medicare. Brady’s desire to care for underserved communities dates back to his experience providing “street medicine” to the unhoused. Today he aims to use his credibility as a physician to chip away at the artificial divisions designed to separate caregivers from their patients and each other.

This Appalachian Town Uses Co-ops To Build New Communities

June 30, 2022 Jeffrey Howard, Resilience. , , ,
The birthplace of bluegrass and home to the oldest mountain range east of the Mississippi River, Southern Appalachia is not only fertile soil for the sharing economy, but a co-op-driven movement known as the solidarity economy. Aimed at generating locally rooted wealth and ensuring its equitable distribution, the solidarity economy is fiercely democratic. For Sara Chester, co-executive director and founder of The Industrial Commons (TIC), a 501(c)3 organization that fosters employee ownership, in a solidarity economy “workers are appreciated not just for their labor but their ideas, insights, and innovations. Workers are not just a piece of the business, they are the reason the business exists.” Sometimes referred to as the co-op model, this approach is about creating prosperous and resilient communities by emphasizing worker agency and ownership, environmental sustainability, and the value of place.

Jailed For A Crime She Didn’t Commit, Dreama Caldwell Takes On The System

April 25, 2022 Jaisal Noor, The Real News Network. , ,
Alamance County, North Carolina, is probably best known for its defense of Confederate monuments and backing Republicans in every presidential campaign since Jimmy Carter. But an important grassroots fight for racial and economic justice is currently unfolding there. One of the leaders of that fight is Dreama Caldwell, a Black working mother who, in 2015, faced a $40,000 bail for a crime she didn’t commit—now she is working to organize across racial and class lines to build grassroots power in rural areas that have been abandoned by the major political parties. In the latest installment of his investigative series “Defending Democracy in the 2022 Midterm Elections,” supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, TRNN’s Jaisal Noor speaks with Caldwell about her story and her organizing work with Down Home North Carolina.

How Biogas Could Do More Harm Than Good For The Hog Industry

April 18, 2022 Cameron Oglesby, Scalawag Magazine. , , , ,
Sherri White-Williamson lives about three miles from a pork processing plant in Clinton, North Carolina. On a good day, the air smells fresh, tainted by a minor whiff of rotten egg and sewage. On a bad day, the odor from the plant is so strong, she has to keep her windows closed. The smell wafts into a local elementary school, nearby restaurants, churches, and the county history museum. Those who live and work in the area say they have to keep fans, candles, and air fresheners running at all hours to make the air tolerable. The problem is even worse for people living down the road in rural Sampson County, near large hog farms, where they must endure more potent odors and pollution coming from the lagoons filled with waste, and the systems that spray waste onto fields as fertilizer.

Black Alliance For Peace Condemns Trial Of Black Activist Dedan Waciuri

December 6, 2021 Black Alliance for Peace. , , , ,
North Carolina - After a number of delays and questionable prosecutorial behavior in their attempts to force a plea-deal because of the weakness of their case, Dedan Waciuri, a resident of Greenville, North Carolina is scheduled to be tried December 7th in the city of Greenville on two charges: “damage to government property” and “inciting a riot.” These charges stem from a protest organized in Greenville on May 31, 2020, in relation to the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and police violence directed at members of the Black community in general. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), a national anti-war and human rights organization believes that the charges against Dedan, a member of BAP’s Coordinating Committee, are a blatant attempt to send a message to the Black communities in Eastern North Carolina that resistance to oppression and the fight for human rights will result in confronting the full weight of the power of the state.
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