South Carolina

Mutual Aid Groups Mobilize In Wake Of Hurricane Helene

October 4, 2024 It's Going Down, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Organize! climate crisis, disaster relief, Florida, Food Not Bombs, Hurricane Helene, Kentucky, Mutual Aid, Natural Disasters, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia

A Category 4 storm, Hurricane Helene, one of the largest storms to hit the Gulf Coast in a century, collided into the Big Bend area of Northern Florida on Thursday, before moving into neighboring states of Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas. According to media reports, upwards of 60 people have already been confirmed dead, although the death toll is expected to rise as many municipalities have yet to release official numbers as cell phone service and internet remains down and millions are currently without power. Extreme flooding has been reported in Atlanta, GA and Asheville, NC, as whole communities are left stranded and lacking proper shelter and access to clean drinking water.

Port Strike Is Suspended Until January After Days On Picket Lines

October 4, 2024 Ian Kayanja and Claire Weber, MSN. Resist! Dockworkers, Protests, South Carolina, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

Local International Longshoremen's Association workers claim the port strike is over, Kenneth Riley with Local 1422 said to News 4. Riley, the international vice president of the ILA and ILA Local 1422 member, claimed the dockworkers got the automation language and significant pay raises included in the contract. However, the deal is far from over. The union, the International Longshoremen’s Association, is to resume working immediately at least until January while contract negotiations continue. “Now that the parties have agreed to resume their roles in our supply chain success, South Carolina’s maritime community stands prepared to deliver for shippers, including manufacturers, farmers and retailers, who utilize our port facilities to access global markets," said South Carolina Port Authority Chief Executive Office Barbara Melvin.

Moving Into The Agrihood

March 19, 2024 Kirsten Lie-Nielsen, Modern Farmer. Create! Agrihood, Food and Agriculture, Food Security, Planned Communities, South Carolina

Outside of Charleston, South Carolina, in the picturesque marshes of the Kiawah River, sits more than 100 acres of working farmland. Seasonal crops rotate through expansive pastures, cattle graze the rich sea grasses and several colonies of bees hurry about their business. But unlike neighboring farms that focus on production for faraway markets or keep a single family afloat, the farm at Kiawah River is supporting 185 families who live in the surrounding homes. Kiawah River is an “agrihood”—a planned community with a working farm at its center.

Righteous Protest Drowned Out As Empire Was Worshipped At AME Church

January 17, 2024 Jacqueline Luqman, Black Agenda Report. Resist! Black America, Elections, Genocide, Joe Biden, South Carolina, US Empire

Let’s start at the top - with President Joe Biden. Using the lame excuse of memorializing the victims of the 2015 racist massacre at Mother Emanuel Church in which nine church members were murdered in cold blood by white supremacist Dylan Roof, who they had welcomed into their Bible Study, Biden’s true purpose for speaking at the church was to beg Black people to save his lagging campaign for re-election . But Biden didn’t even memorialize the victims of that massacre nearly a decade later by name, nor did he bother to speak at the church on the actual anniversary of the massacre, June 15.

87% Of Service Workers In US South Were Injured On The Job Last Year

April 11, 2023 People's Dispatch. Educate! Black America, Health Care, OSHA, South Carolina, Worker Rights and Jobs

A March survey of 347 service workers in the US South found that a shocking 87% were injured on the job in the last year. The workers surveyed came from eleven states across the “Black belt,” or Southern states with historically large Black populations: North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Workers organized under the Union of Southern Service Workers filed a landmark civil rights complaint against South Carolina’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (SC OSHA), alleging that the agency “discriminates by disproportionately excluding black workers from the protection of its programmed inspections.”

NLRB Punches Holes In No-Recording Policies

February 24, 2023 Robert M. Schwartz, Labor Notes. Organize! South Carolina, Starbucks, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Anderson, South Carolina - A February 13, 2023 ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) clarifies whether employees can be disciplined for recording conversations with management officials. The ruling (372 NLRB No. 50) involved two Starbucks stores in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and members of a rank-and-file group called Baristas United. Two leaders of the group were fired for ostensibly violating established store policy by secretly recording conversations with supervisors on their cell phones. During the conversations, the employees were illegally warned about making negative statements about Starbucks.

Union Organizing Southern Restaurant Workers Holds First Strike

January 31, 2023 Hanna Raskin, The Food Section. Resist! South Carolina, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

How many Dollar General workers does it take to whip up a strike at Store #10635 on Broad River Road in Irmo, South Carolina? Two. Two, because Miranda Chavez and TyBrianna Shaw constitute the entirety of the location’s fulltime, non-managerial staff. Two, because when a store is so drastically understaffed that there’s only one worker in the building for an eight-hour shift, she doesn’t get a lunch break. Two, because when a worker is forced to close up alone at 11 p.m., she has to walk by herself to her car in a dark parking lot, where even the Dollar General sign no longer glows. Two, because it doesn’t matter how many people are on the payroll if workers aren’t provided with masks and gloves when unloading boxes dripping with corrosive chemicals. Those were among the complaints lodged against the Tennessee-based chain by Chavez and Shaw, who on January 17 became the first low-wage workers to strike under the auspices of the newly formed Union of Southern Service Workers.

Southern Service Workers Launch A New Union

November 23, 2022 Stephanie Luce, Labor Notes. Organize! Labor Movement, South Carolina, The South, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Columbia, South Carolina - Hundreds of service workers from across the South gathered in Columbia, South Carolina, November 17-19 to launch the Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW), taking their fight to a new level. The new organization grows out of the Raise Up, the Southern branch of the Fight for $15 and a Union, a movement backed by Service Employees International Union (SEIU). In addition to fast food, members work in hotels, gas stations, retail, home care, sit-down restaurants, and more. Some of these workers have been organizing their industries for a decade with Raise Up—fighting for higher wages and better working conditions. Others have only recently joined the effort—including many who felt that the pandemic exposed how essential their work was, and how little corporations and politicians valued them.

These Starbucks Workers Demanded Fair Pay, Then Were Accused Of Kidnapping Their Boss

August 31, 2022 Saurav Sarkar, In These Times. Resist! Lawfare, South Carolina, Starbucks, Worker Rights and Jobs

Anderson, South Carolina - On August 1, Melissa Morris, a manager of a Starbucks location in Anderson, South Carolina, accused unionized workers at her store of kidnapping and assaulting her during her first week on the job. The shocking accusation resulted from workers holding a “march on the boss” to demand that they benefit from the same pay raise the company was providing to non-union stores, and, as a result, 11 workers have been suspended while the company and police investigate the issue. These workers call the allegations “ridiculous” and part of the company’s broader anti-union campaign.

Deep South Baristas Strike Starbucks

May 30, 2022 Labor Notes. Resist! South Carolina, Starbucks, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Columbia, South Carolina - Starbucks baristas in Columbia, South Carolina, returned to their jobs on Saturday, May 21, following a three-day walkout to protest anti-union retaliation. Managers began denying employees promotions and transfers several weeks ago after 22 of 28 “partners” at the Millwood Avenue store petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for union representation. The workers reached a breaking point on May 18 when a popular store manager was fired for refusing to engage in union busting. Two hours after learning of their manager’s dismissal the entire shift walked out, forcing the store to close early. “She was a large reason a lot of us were still with the company,” said barista Sophie Ryan of her former manager.

High Court Rejects Governor’s Private School Aid Plan

October 8, 2020 Michelle Liu, AP News. Resist! Education Funding, Private schools, South Carolina, Vouchers

Columbia, SC - The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled Wednesday a program created by Gov. Henry McMaster to allocate $32 million in federal pandemic aid to private and religious schools is unconstitutional because the public money would directly benefit the schools. In the court’s opinion, Chief Justice Don Beatty acknowledged the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the lives of South Carolinians and the state’s education system, and the “unprecedented challenges” faced by state leaders including McMaster.

South Carolina Prisoners Appeal To The UN For Relief From Torturous Conditions

November 9, 2019 By Kelly Hayes, Truthout.org Resist! Prisoners, South Carolina, United Nations

Can you imagine living without sunlight? Many of us experience seasonal affective (SAD) disorder in the winter months, causing symptoms ranging from depression and lethargy to thoughts of suicide. SAD can also exacerbate the symptoms of some mental illnesses, like bipolar disorder. But while grey skies may be depressing, or even hazardous to our health, most of us can’t fathom what it would be like to go over a year without sunlight. For prisoners in South Carolina’s Level 3 prisons, this scenario is all too real.

South Carolina DOC Director Stirling Drafts Facetious Cell Phone Contraband Act

March 30, 2019 Amani Sawari, Sawarimi.org Educate! Prisons, South Carolina, Telecommunications

I purposely chose the word facetious, because South Carolina’s Dept. of Correction’s Director Bryan Stirling has absurdly decided to address serious issued in South Carolin’a prisons with impotent legislation. The problem in South Carolina’s prisons is NOT the fact that a few prisoners have obtained access to cell phones. The problem is that South Carolina’s prisons, some of the most dangerous and deadly in country, are in devastatingly horrific conditions and prisoners have been using cell phones to expose the issues that they are forcibly confined to.

Taken: Police Departments Make Millions By Seizing Property

February 3, 2019 Anna Lee, Nathaniel Cary and Mike Ellis, The Greenville News. Educate! Criminal Justice, Police, Racism, South Carolina

When a man barged into Isiah Kinloch’s apartment and broke a bottle over his head, the North Charleston resident called 911. After cops arrived on that day in 2015, they searched the injured man’s home and found an ounce of marijuana. So they took $1,800 in cash from his apartment and kept it. When Eamon Cools-Lartigue was driving on Interstate 85 in Spartanburg County, deputies stopped him for speeding. The Atlanta businessman wasn’t criminally charged in the April 2016 incident. Deputies discovered $29,000 in his car, though, and decided to take it.

Photos Show Aftermath Of Lethal South Carolina Prison Brawl That Left Seven Dead

April 18, 2018 Steve Horn, Prisonlegalnews.org Resist! Prison, Prisoner rights, Rebellion, South Carolina

Photos obtained by Prison Legal News appear to reveal the bloody aftermath of a riot that occurred at the Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina around 7:15 p.m. on April 15. The violence, which culminated in the deaths of seven prisoners, was the deadliest event of its sort in the past quarter-century in the United States. A source who requested anonymity and said he is currently imprisoned at the Lee facility in Bishopville provided PLN with a series of photos that appear to have been taken with a cell phone. The images show dead or badly-wounded bodies covered with blood and a blood-soaked floor. PLN could not verify the photos at press time, and our investigation into the authenticity of the graphic pictures remains ongoing.

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