The most recent figure for the median wage in the greater Birmingham, Ala., was nearly $3 above Amazon’s pay at its warehouse in Bessemer, despite Amazon promoting that most rank-and-file workers there make around $15.50 an hour. Veteran production workers made $23.50 an hour at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., in 2019 when unionization was considered there. The comparable figure was $23 at Boeing’s South Carolina facility when workers voted on a union. At Nissan’s Mississippi plant during the vote there, also in 2017, the number was $26. During the first half the 2010s, workers unionized at several auto parts suppliers in Alabama and elsewhere in the South, often citing low pay and benefits as the impetus.

Source: New York Times March 18, 2021 12:45 UTC