Economic Justice and Workers' Rights

The Economic Justice and Workers' Rights Program at the Institute for Southern Studies provides research, analysis, and educational tools to promote a more just economy in the South. Through the program, the Institute monitors key worker and economic issues; reports on workers' rights, labor, and economic justice trends in the Institute's online magazine Facing South; and collaborates with partners to build worker power and promote an economic justice agenda, with a special focus on North Carolina. For more information, contact Chris Kromm at chris@southernstudies.org.

Resources and Reports

Living in Durham (2026)

Learning in Durham (2026)

Working in Durham (2026)

Labor and Economic Justice Dispatches in Facing South

Report: Durham’s biggest employers can do more to tackle the affordable housing crisis (9/18/26)

Report: Duke, large Durham employers must tap growing prosperity to address school funding gap (9/3/26)

Labor is at the heart of the Black Freedom Struggle: A conversation with Charles McKinney (9/2/26)

Report: Durham's decade of growth has left working people behind (8/6/26)

Unions make slight gains in South, mirroring national trends (4/9/26)

UNITE HERE shakes up NC politics: A conversation with Maria Hernandez (4/8/26)

Durham Rising confronts Duke’s troubled labor history (9/14/25)

Institute Index: The assault on consumer protection (8/28/25)

South poised to be hit hard by Trump federal job cuts (2/24/25)

VOICES: The stone is in our hands, now we take the shot (2/10/25)

Fall for Liberation: An interview with Step Up Louisiana's Maria Harmon (10/30/24)

Partners

The Economic Justice and Workers' Rights Program works with a wide variety of labor, worker, and community organizations. Recent in-depth partnerships include the Durham Rising coalition, Labor South (a sponsored project of the Institute), Union of Southern Service Workers, and UNITE HERE.