Payday is hitting the road to get into the trenches of the fight to Organize the South.
This winter, we were able to successfully raise our budget for the spring and used a portion of that money to buy a car off of Payday reader Judge Wayne Hanson of Pennsylvania. Now, we are hitting the road for the next two months and intend to tour ten states. To do this tour, we need to raise $1,500 to pay for our gas, hotel rooms, and food while we are out reporting.
Go to our IndieGoGo account to donate.
Here is a look at some of the places we intend to go and the stories we hope to cover:
– Canton, Mississippi – Bernie Sanders is flying down to Mississippi to march in solidarity with the NAACP and the UAW which are engaged in a dynamic multi-year campaign to unionize Nissan.
– Huntsville, Alabama – Alabama was once a union stronghold in the Deep South. However, last year, Alabama lost over 37,000 union members while all that states that border Alabama gained union members.
– Nashville, Tennessee – Nashville is growing at nearly 10% a year and experiencing a major construction boom. Yet, most of that work is being done non-union and workers complain that safety on the job is lacking.
– Knoxville, Tennessee – The Republican Governor of Tennessee Bill Haslam is attempting to privatize over 10,000 jobs in the University of Tennessee system. Organized labor and even some Republican legislators are fighting the measure.
– Frankfort, Kentucky – The Kentucky AFL-CIO is meeting to strategize how to adapt to the recently passed “Right-to-Work” law.
– Charleston, West Virginia – Recently proposed cuts to West Virginia Public Broadcasting are being protested by labor and environmentalists in the state.
– Baltimore, Maryland – Democrats in Maryland have been opposing efforts to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
– Washington, D.C. – Payday is going to investigate how labor is responding to the Trump era.
– Danville, Virginia – The small town of Danville was recently rocked by the deaths of four workers at the Goodyear plant. Payday hopes to investigate how the community is responding.
– Raleigh, North Carolina – Despite lacking collective bargaining rights, the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union is making large inroads across the state.
– Charleston, South Carolina – Boeing workers recently lost a union vote at the plant by a margin of 3 to 1. We want to look into how workers intend to keep organizing there.
– Atlanta, Georgia – State Senator Vince Fort is making an insurgent run for Mayor of Atlanta. He has received the support of Bernie Sanders and the area’s labor unions, but is facing heavy opposition from the Democratic Machine.
These are just a few of the planned stops, we have along the way. If you want Payday to come visit your community to do some reporting, just let give us a place to stay and we will come do some reporting.
So folks, help us get out the road and raise $1,500 we need to do this reporting tour. Go to our IndieGoGo account to donate.
In Solidarity,
Mike Elk, Payday Senior Labor Reporter
