Washington, DC – Nearly 40,000 Verizon workers returned to work on June 1, just days after a tentative agreement between the company and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) unions brought their 44-day strike to an end.

Fight Back! interviewed Sarah Buchner, a call center worker at SITEL Corporation in Asheville, North Carolina. The New South is notorious for low-wages and big corporations calling all the shots, but brave new leaders like Buchner are arising to organize unions. Their yearlong struggle for respect, better benefits and good wages is gaining power and impacting the local area.