Alabama union leaders say they’re fighting for the state’s middle class

The president of one of Alabama’s largest unions said last week that people forget the meaning of Labor Day: You should not have to work every day to afford to live.

Anthony Holton is the president of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Local Lodge 2003 (IAM). The union’s members work at Fort Rucker, an army aviation base in Daleville, Alabama, between Enterprise and Dothan.

“When union density goes down, so does the middle class. The two literally coincide,” He said in a phone interview Friday. “When union density is up, the middle class is up.”

Alabama was traditionally one of the South’s more unionized states, due to its long manufacturing heritage. But union membership has declined in the state. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership in Alabama declined from 156,000 workers — about 7.5% of the state’s 2.1 million workers — to 140,000, about 6.6% of the state’s workforce, in 2024.

Holton said the union has between 3,500 and 5,000 members. Its goal, he said, is to fight for the employees of the base to be “normal.”

“They’re not going to have to work double and triple and another job, and they can go spend the time watching their children play ball like everyone else in the world,” Holton said. “To be able to go out and be volunteer coaches, to be able to be someone in our community that is there all the time that are actually contributing. You’re not stuck at work all the time doing things that you don’t want to do.”

He said he is frustrated with lawmakers and politics in the South because the union is at a military base. He said it seems that Democrats are for unions, but against military growth, but Republicans are the opposite.

“What is wrong with not having to work two jobs? What’s wrong with having the ability to retire a pension plan? What is wrong with having safety standards? What is wrong with those things? It doesn’t have to be a left or a right side,” Holton said. “In my mind, it needs to be a decency side. What is decent for human beings, your people, your workers, people that are the backbone of this country?”

Holton said that there would probably be more unionization in the state if people realized that the issues unions usually fight for – fair hours and wages – are faced by their coworkers.

“I think a lot of times people forget we can grow our own allies by starting with … there’s a lot of brilliant people I know right there on the floors beside us,” Holton said. “They are working the same kind of jobs, worrying about the same things: Are they going to pay the rent or are they going to take their baby to the doctor?”

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Holton’s goals at IAM are similar to those of Lance Ingwersen, the co-chair of United Campus Workers of Alabama, Local 3821 (CWA) at Jacksonville State University. The campus union launched two years ago, joining chapters at Auburn University and the University of Alabama. Since the launch, Ingwersen and his colleagues have been fighting for a livable wage for JSU’s hourly employees, per the Livable Wage Calculator by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Through that campaign, the campus’ custodial staff – among the lowest paid hourly workers, save for student workers – starting wage has increased about 15% from $9.09 per hour to $10.45 per hour, he said.

“It’s still well below the $15 and then later $17 that we’ve been pushing for those workers,” Ingwersen said. “That’s still the primary focus of our work on campus is just trying to get fairer wages for those hourly workers.”

According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a livable wage in Calhoun County, where JSU is located, for a family of three where both parents are working is $18.53 per hour.

CWA’s biggest challenge, though, is advertising its existence. Under a university policy, Ingwersen said, “Protected Expressive Activities” that are not sponsored by the university can only assemble in two places on campus.

“It’s very murky, so it’s really hard to let people know,” Ingwersen said. “We have to rely on things like social media and other stuff.”

For CWA and IAM, it has become a reminder that you should earn fair pay for the work you do.

“If a man or a woman goes, and they put in a hard day’s work, they deserve the wage that they deserve because they are the reason you are successful,” Holton said of companies.

This story is from alabamareflector.com.