Alabama Arise, the member-led non-profit focused on addressing poverty in the state, has launched a new campaign aimed at growing the strength and reach of Alabama’s labor movement.
The organization detailed its “Worker Power Campaign” in a virtual briefing Wednesday, outlining their goals of creating a stronger labor movement in the state, restoring Alabama’s union density, and reducing the economic imbalance between Alabama’s working class and corporate power.
Arise’s campaign looks to emphasize people power as a means of effecting change, taking cues from the social movements of the 1930s and ’60s. According to the organization, increasing union participation in the state will be a key source of that power.
During Wednesday’s briefing, Adam Keller, Arise’s Worker Power Campaign director, highlighted several figures published by the Economic Policy Institute, EPI, showcasing the crucial role which unions play in expanding worker power. One such figure paints a directly inverse correlation between union membership and the percentage of income going to the top 10 percent. Keller explained that as American union membership has declined over the past several decades, the working class has lost more and more of its income as the wealthy have grown wealthier and wealthier.
In Alabama alone, union density has declined from 10.8 percent in 2014 to 6.6 percent in 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, Alabamians suffer from one of the highest poverty rates in the nation and a median household income significantly lower than the national average.
And while American productivity has consistently grown since the late 1940s, wages have largely remained stagnant since about 1979, creating the vast wealth inequality we see between workers and corporate leadership today, not only in Alabama, but across the U.S.
As Keller puts it, “we are in a 21st-century version of the Gilded Age.”
To combat this trend of growing inequality, Arise hopes to support unionization efforts in Alabama—efforts which have grown in recent years, particularly in the state’s auto industry. By promoting unionization, Arise hopes to help Alabama’s workers fight for better wages that more accurately reflect the productivity they generate.
In addition to coordinating solidarity actions in support of unionization, the Worker Power Campaign will also focus on education and leadership development programs to train workers and community leaders. Arise will also continue to push for pro-worker policies in Montgomery, as the organization looks to collaborate with lawmakers who support labor rights and champion working-class communities. Improved union rights, fairer wages, paid leave and better working conditions are just some of the broad policies the campaign will look to advocate for on behalf of all Alabama workers.
The campaign will also feature a coordinated communications effort, with Arise looking to shift the public discourse surrounding labor, dignity and economic justice—and to generally engage more Alabamians in discussions of labor issues.
In Keller’s view, if Arise can effect change in Alabama, where organized labor is particularly weak and where corporate influence is particularly strong, then similar change can be effected nationwide.
“Organize the South, and we can change the nation,” Keller said during Wednesday’s briefing.
The Worker Power Campaign will also see Arise collaborate with several partner organizations and coalitions, including Good Neighbors Alabama, United Auto Workers, Communications Worker of America, United Campus Workers, American Federation of Teachers, Alabama AFL-CIO & Central Labor Councils and the union magazine Labor Notes. Additionally, the organization will be reaching out to local leaders, faith communities, progressive nonprofits and social justice movements as they look to establish a lasting infrastructure for grassroots change.
