NOTE: You can donate directly to workers at this GoFundMe or donate to help train and support them and their organizational campaigns at this link.
Beginning last week from September 6 to 8 and continuing this week, hundreds of Durham sanitation workers are on strike and have refused to load their work trucks in protest of low pay. This is their first ever strike—and it's a strike that is against North Carolina law, as public workers don't have the right to strike in the state.
These workers are tasked with a great deal of labor without corresponding pay. Payday Report, a labor publication, interviewed one sanitation worker with the city who was tasked with working as a part-time "snow plow driver, a dump truck driver, and even a chainsaw operator" in addition to his duties as a sewage truck driver. Other workers for the city also reported similar circumstances. Incidentally, 120 of the 177 positions in the public works department are listed as vacant currently. Payday Report further notes that:
[...]wages for public works employees in Durham, who are overwhelmingly African-American, have increased by 15% [since 2019] while inflation has risen by 23%, so that many workers essentially received an 8% pay cut.
A move to strike has also been in the cards for a long time—the union, UE Local 150, has been planning to strike since last year. But it's not as if the union has refused to negotiate with the city during that time. A petition of grievances and how they would be fixed was drafted in that time period, and workers delivered the finished petition to the City Council last week. Their final demands an "immediate $5000 bonus; pay [for] workers for all work outside their job title; and hir[ing] all temporary workers [as] permanent"—all fiscally within the abilities of Durham currently and not particularly unreasonable. But the City Council voted against a raise for city employees back in June, so I guess this is consistent.
In the days to come it's unclear how the situation will develop—it would seem the workers are in a fragile position of strength. With the public works department already so gutted it would be unwise of the city to sue to bring the remaining sanitation employees back to work. But the city has seemingly begun to nudge workers on coming back to work, so union will probably need external and financial support to keep the strike going for longer than this week. If it's within your means to donate, I would say this is a strike where your financial support will go a uniquely long way.