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Arise legislative update: Feb. 26, 2024
Arise's Akiesha Anderson breaks down a flurry of legislation that kept us busy last week. She discusses bills filed in response to the Alabama Supreme Court's decision on in vitro fertilization (IVF), updates us on anti-DEI legislation and examines the CHOOSE Act, a bill that would redirect public school funding to private schools and homeschooling. [...]
Blog
Arise legislative update: Feb. 20, 2024
Arise's Akiesha Anderson provides updates on all the bills that moved last week and previews what's to come this week in the Alabama Legislature. Topics include a harmful bill that would create barriers to absentee voting, efforts to preserve child labor protections, the future of the state sales tax on groceries and the CHOOSE Act, [...]
News Releases
Alabama should improve wages, working conditions for autoworkers, new Alabama Arise report finds
Declining wages and pay gaps in Alabama’s auto manufacturing industry cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in labor income and economic growth each year, an Alabama Arise report released Thursday found. Racial, gender and geographic pay disparities also persist even though Alabama automakers have received more than $1.6 billion in public incentives since [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2023
Since the 1990s, Alabama has bet big on the auto industry. It has been a high-stakes effort to rebuild the state’s economy around high-wage manufacturing, raise the wages of Alabama’s workers and reduce the economic distress so prevalent across the state. A quarter-century after the first M-Class rolled off the Mercedes-Benz assembly line in Vance, [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2023 – Section 1: Introduction
Since the 1990s, Alabama has bet big on the auto industry. It has been a high-stakes effort to rebuild the state’s economy around high-wage manufacturing, raise the wages of Alabama’s workers and reduce the economic distress so prevalent across the state. A quarter-century after the first M-Class rolled off the Mercedes-Benz assembly line in Vance, subsidized by [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2023 – Section 2: The high stakes and big bet on Alabama’s auto industry
Since the early 1990s, Alabama has bet big on the auto industry, and the stakes have always been high. At the time the state succeeded in recruiting Mercedes in 1993, Alabama’s economy was headed in the wrong direction. Alabama was lagging because policymakers failed to modernize state laws by shifting away from centuries of persistently anti-worker [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2023 – Section 3: The ways the bet on auto benefited Alabama
The auto industry plays a crucial role in Alabama’s economy. In many stakeholders’ views, the industry has benefited the state in the 30 years since Mercedes moved to town. State media outlets routinely report glowing headlines like: “Alabama's modern auto industry becomes state’s top export 25 years after its birth.”[51] “Alabama’s auto industry looks to add more than [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2023 – Section 4: A wheel in the ditch — Autoworkers see falling pay
Auto plants in Alabama have made a significant contribution to the state’s economy. But the big bet and significant investment in the form of corporate subsidies has only partly paid off. This is in part because the state’s weak worker protections have not mandated employment standards that would ensure better work conditions and equitable pay for workers despite [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2023 – Section 5: A wheel in the ditch — Pay gaps and occupational segregation
Alongside the 20-year decline in earnings paid to workers, Alabama’s auto companies also are falling short by paying staggeringly unequal wages across race and gender lines. Men earn significantly more than women, and white workers earn significantly more than Black and Hispanic workers. These pay gaps are driven largely by occupational segregation: the fact that Black, Hispanic and female workers are disproportionately employed [...]
Report
The State of Working Alabama 2023 – Section 6: A wheel in the ditch — Economic impact of falling wages and the pay gap
Alabama’s autoworkers are living through a 20-year story of wage loss and unequal pay. This trend doesn’t harm only the individual auto employee who earned less this year than last. It also impacts employees across the entire industry and holds back Alabama’s overall economy. Unequal pay and declining wages take money out of autoworkers’ pockets that they otherwise would spend [...]