New Economic Policy Institute report details how Southern workers and communities can claim a fairer share of manufacturing growth

Worker and community power can ensure new Southern manufacturing investments yield good jobs and lasting economic gains, according to a new Economic Policy Institute report.

While U.S. manufacturing employment has fallen during the last three decades, the South has retained the largest share of manufacturing employment of any region. In 2024, 35% of U.S. manufacturing employment was in the South. Since 2010, manufacturing employment in the South has grown by 17%, the quickest growth of any region.

Yet, Southern workers and communities have failed to substantially benefit from new manufacturing investments. Instead, a long-standing Southern economic development model has prioritized corporate power and profits over communities.

The report shows that community benefits agreements (CBAs) are one key tool to ensure that new industrial investments generate good manufacturing jobs that pay a living wage, expand pathways to unionization, and deliver broadly shared economic benefits for local communities. CBAs are legally enforceable private agreements between a company or developer and a coalition of labor unions and community groups that ensure new or expanding facilities generate good jobs, protect local resources, and invest in community needs. Because CBAs are private agreements between labor-community coalitions and project owners, they do not rely on government action and can therefore shape economic outcomes of major projects even in otherwise hostile political environments.

The fights to secure these gains can also help forge strong, durable labor-community coalitions needed to reshape the political fabric of Southern communities and increase working people's influence over broader state or regional economic policy decisions.

"Community benefits agreements are powerful tools for Southern labor and community groups to build the shared power necessary to reshape local and eventually regional economies. Strong CBAs can secure measurable economic benefits like higher wages, respect for workers' rights to unionize, local or targeted hiring, protection of natural resources, and more affordable housing," said Sebastian Martinez Hickey, EPI's state economic analyst and co-author of the report. "These economic gains are beneficial in themselves, but the formation of a community benefits coalition can also help build the labor-community power necessary to change the Southern status quo."