April 16 marked the 56th anniversary of Memphis sanitation workers winning their legendary 1968 strike for union recognition. These brave workers had to survive violent repression and the devastating loss of their most powerful ally, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated after coming to Memphis in support of their strike. Just 12 days after that unspeakable crime, and 66 days after they illegally walked off the job, this public-sector union of Black workers in the South finally won their central demand: union recognition. It was a triumphant moment in civil rights and labor movement history that is still inspiring organizing across the country, including right here in Durham. 

Union recognition is when an employer agrees to formally negotiate, collaborate, and problem solve with its employees’ union about their working conditions, usually through a process called collective bargaining. As the Memphis sanitation workers’ iconic “I AM A MAN” picket signs so powerfully communicated, union recognition is ultimately about respect, dignity, and the treatment of workers as equal human beings by their employer. 

Union recognition is also what my majority-BIPOC public-sector union, the Durham Association of Educators (DAE), is fighting for right now. As educators we have a duty to fight for our students, for our community, and for a just society, and to do that we need our union rights to be respected. This year, more than 3,300 of 5,000 Durham Public Schools (DPS) workers have signed a petition asking to be represented by DAE at the table with the school district. Spurred to action by the district issuing pay cuts to classified staff, DAE organized two days of action, on January 31 and February 5, where thousands of workers marched for both a restoration of pay and union recognition. And we are days away from a historic milestone: representing a majority of all DPS workers—teachers, instructional assistants, custodians, cafeteria workers, occupational therapists, and more—as dues-paying members.

Dr. King understood how unionism—especially in the South—and the struggle for civil rights and racial equality have always been inseparable. In a 1961 speech he said, “In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone …. Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer, and there are no civil rights …. We demand this fraud be stopped.” 

North Carolina is one of the states where the antiworker, antiunion laws Dr. King spoke against have been in place for a long time, which makes unionizing here difficult, but not impossible and not illegal. In 1959, North Carolina banned public-sector collective bargaining. We still live under that Jim Crow–era law, which was passed by an all-white legislature in order to strip our diverse public sector of the full union rights that we would have in almost every other state.

However, collective bargaining is not the only way to recognize a union. Meet and Confer is an alternative framework for honoring workers’ rights in the six states—including Mississippi, Texas, and Arkansas—where full collective bargaining is still banned for public school workers. DAE is asking the Board of Education to pass a Meet and Confer policy that recognizes our right as workers to have a collective voice through our union. We have the choice this year: we can make history together and reject that Jim Crow law by becoming the first North Carolina school district in 65 years to formally recognize a union, or we can continue with a status quo that isn’t working.  

Student needs—and the staff responsible for nurturing our students everyday—must be at the center of decision-making for our schools. Meet and Confer would create a context for an employee representative organization, like DAE, to regularly collaborate with administration to improve our schools. It would allow union members to bring the combined wisdom of thousands of passionate, talented school staff into the conversation with district administration to better understand our students’ greatest needs and find solutions that are not possible when on-the-ground educators are left out of decision-making. This is how DPS can chart a path toward stability, better working conditions, staff retention, and better learning conditions for all our kids.

We need Meet and Confer more than ever because our public schools are under attack like never before. The General Assembly is diverting billions of dollars each year from public schools through pay cuts for corporations and private-school tuition vouchers. Gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson opposes teaching science and social studies in elementary school. Right here in Durham, the $9 million classified pay debacle and the top-down decision to cut pay for our lowest-paid workers to make up for management’s mistakes have DPS staff feeling less respected than ever. Trust in the district is at an all-time low and a staff turnover crisis is already hurting our students. It will get worse if we don’t rebuild hope and trust. 

Thousands of my coworkers and I believe we owe it to our families, our students, and our future to follow in the footsteps of Dr. King and the Memphis sanitation workers and bravely stand up for union recognition, civil rights, and our public schools. And we have faith that the Durham community and the Durham Board of Education will follow in those footsteps with us.

Symone Kiddoo is a Durham Public Schools social worker and president of the Durham Association of Educators.

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