Alabama runs on workers. It shouldn’t run over them.
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By Adam Keller
Every day across Alabama, working people provide the labor to keep this state running.
They are the nurses caring for patients on long shifts in understaffed hospitals. The autoworkers and manufacturing workers building the vehicles and equipment that power our economy. The teachers shaping the next generation. The sanitation workers, truck drivers, construction crews, warehouse workers, public employees and so many others who keep our communities functioning day after day.
Alabama runs on workers.
Yet it often seems the people who make this state work have the least say over their work conditions and their communities’ future. Many workers are struggling with rising costs, unsafe job sites, unpredictable schedules and wages and benefits that haven’t kept pace with the cost of living. And too often, when workers organize collectively to improve their lives, they are met with fierce opposition from employers and their political allies. Meanwhile, Alabama’s bare-bones public services do not meet our families’ needs.
One recent national study ranked Alabama among the worst states in the country for working people. More and more of us are tired of Alabama being at the bottom of everything good and at the top of everything bad when it comes to quality of life.
It doesn’t have to be this way. A better Alabama is possible, but only if working people come together and fight for it.
That’s why workers and allies across the state are coming together for a Workers’ Week of Action from April 27 through May 1. This series of events, gatherings and actions will lift up the voices of working people and highlight the importance of dignity, safety and fairness on the job.
Throughout the week, communities across Alabama have hosted events highlighting the challenges that workers face and the solutions that come when working people stand together. “The Valley Labor Report,” the South’s largest labor talk show, kicked off the week with a special livestream on Monday, April 27, at 6 p.m. Organizers from across Alabama shared updates on active campaigns and struggles, local events and ways to help grow working-class power.
Tuesday, April 28, was Workers Memorial Day, when we pause to remember workers who have been killed or injured while doing their jobs. Every year, working families lose loved ones to workplace accidents and preventable hazards.
As the old labor movement mantra says, an injury to one is an injury to all. Honoring those we have lost means more than remembrance. It means committing ourselves to making workplaces safer for the living.
The week culminates with May Day, known around the world as International Workers’ Day, a celebration of the power of working people standing together for fairness and justice. Workers everywhere will be taking action, with Alabama events in Huntsville, Jacksonville and more.
These two days, taken together, tell a powerful story. One reminds us of the human cost when workers are treated as disposable. The other reminds us of the strength workers have when we stand together and demand something better.
We encourage workers across Alabama to share their stories and organize for change. From autoworkers facing unsafe conditions to health care workers squeezed by hospital consolidation and closures, from educators facing legislative attacks to federal workers having their rights stripped, from immigrant workers afraid to report to the job site to families struggling to make ends meet, we all have a story to tell about our experience as a working person in this state.
Throughout history, progress has come when everyday people organize and demand something better. Labor rights, civil rights and so many of the freedoms we value today were not simply handed down from above. These gains were won by ordinary people standing together and demanding justice.
That same spirit is alive today. Workers across Alabama are organizing for safer workplaces, better pay and the dignity and respect everyone deserves on the job. They are building solidarity across industries, communities and backgrounds to fight for an economy that works for the many, not just the few.
Because when workers have a voice, the entire community benefits.
Safer workplaces mean fewer families devastated by tragedy. Better wages mean more money circulating in local businesses. Stable jobs mean stronger communities where people can build a future for their children.
In short, when workers do well, Alabama does well.
This Workers’ Week of Action is about lifting up those voices and reminding our neighbors that our state’s prosperity depends on the people who do the work. Working people across Alabama are sending a simple message: Our state should put need over greed.
Alabama runs on workers. And when workers stand together, there is nothing we cannot achieve.
Adam Keller is the Worker Power Campaign director for Alabama Arise, a statewide, member-led nonprofit organization advancing public policies to improve the lives of Alabamians who are marginalized by poverty. Arise’s membership includes faith-based, nonprofit and civic groups, grassroots leaders and individuals from across Alabama.
