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Since Wednesday, Durham sanitation workers have been on strike, fighting for better pay and an immediate bonus. This was sparked by rank-and-file union members, frustrated with the lack of progress from meetings with city councilors.

Tuesday night at the Durham City Council, UE Local 150 spoke with a group of largely uninterested city councilors about a plan to increase pay for sanitation workers. One person who was there told us that afterwards, groups of rank and file expressed unhappiness with the lack of progress, and talk of a strike began. This spread rapidly amongst those present, and soon the majority of sanitation workers there were calling to go on an immediate strike.

The next day, sanitation workers refused to go into work, and trash all over Durham sat uncollected. The strike has been a glowing example of the power workers hold over the system when organized. In North Carolina, strikes by city workers are illegal. However, the city is unable to take action currently due to the collective strength of the sanitation workers.

Like most workers across the country, sanitation workers in Durham are overworked and horrendously underpaid. In a rally this week, many sanitation workers spoke about the fact that they are unable to afford to live in the city of Durham, and nearly half are forced to work a second job. Under capitalism, workers will always be underpaid as the owning class, the capitalist class, siphons off the value created by the working class to serve their interests. This will never change, and workers will never receive the entirety of the value they create unless the system is overthrown and replaced with something new: Socialism.

The Durham sanitation workers’ will to strike, fighting back against a system that tries to criminalize their organizing, represents the will needed to break from this oppressive system. When the working class organizes and wields its collective strength, it’s an unstoppable force.

Durham Sanitation Workers are organizing a strike fund to replace their lost wages during the strike. You can donate here.