Workers for the New Flyer bus manufacturer formed a union in 2024 in traditionally anti-union Alabama. Their first contract includes significant wage raises, cost-of-living increases, and improvements to retirement benefits. Why did these workers win in a state where so many other workers have lost? New Flyer currently has a huge contract with the Los Angeles public transit system. Advocates in that city have negotiated a “community benefits agreement” with the firm that, among other conditions, requires the company to remain neutral in unionization campaigns. If New Flyer did not respect the Alabama workers’ rights, the firm risked losing those public funds. “The New Flyer example,” as Nick Hertsch of Demos explains in an Inequality.org exclusive, “offers a clear lesson for organizers: Money talks, and employers listen to their workers much better when their public funding is on the line.” —By Inequality.org
