Women's Clothing Boutique in Garner, NC

GARNER, N.C. (WTVD) -- Inside her bakery on West Main Street, Barbara Jemison takes a fresh batch of cookies out of the oven.

"We're really well known for our pastries, our cookies, and then grab-and-go cakes because these are all scratch made," said Jemison, who owns Nana's Lil Sweets.

She's nearing three years at this location.

"The community has really embraced us well and we've been really grateful for that. I will say that we don't have foot traffic like we originally anticipated, so we've become a destination spot," said Jemison.

Jemison notes huge growth in the number of weddings they've worked, though it's the day-to-day traffic that she's hoping becomes more consistent. She's optimistic new developments could ultimately address that.

"Every day we get a couple of new people and it's just starting to take off, and so that's always exciting for us to grow," Jemison said

Down the street, the new Metro 201 Project is set to include 10,000 square feet of commercial space and 24 residential units, marking the first new commercial space built in downtown Garner since the 1980s.

"It's our time now. The region is growing. Wake County is one of the fastest-growing counties in the country, so obviously, that growth is is going to come to us. We just realized that now, having that available parcel right there was a good opportunity. We're trying to increase the amount of food and beverage opportunities in downtown Garner," said Nate Groover, who serves as the Economic Development Director for the Town of Garner, who added crews are expected to break ground this summer.

As of December, the town's estimated population topped 41,000 people, a figure more than 30% higher than the US Census Bureau reported in 2020.

"People generally stay within a mile or two mile radius if they can from where they live to do the things they want to do. As you build that in downtown, it really helps as you want to recruit new businesses to the area," said Matthew Coppedge, who serves as the President and CEO of the Garner Chamber of Commerce.

"We have a comprehensive plan that our Council voted on and enacted. We try to use those tools to basically help us grow in a smart way, obviously paying attention to the needs and concerns of our residents," said Groover.

Metro 201 is located next to the Garner Recreation Center and near the Pearl Street Townhomes, another new housing option.

"You want a critical mass of people living and working (downtown). And so until you get to that point, you really want destination-type retail, restaurant, entertainment in a downtown environment to actually bring people to that area. That's kind of what we've been working with the town private sector on," Coppedge said.

Both Groover and Coppedge have extensive backgrounds working in different parts of the state; Groover spent time with the EDPNC, while Coppedge worked in Durham for a decade, focusing on downtown revitalization.

The pair have also visited other municipalities to gain an understanding of how they can incorporate what's worked elsewhere in Garner.

"The importance of public art in spaces like this and then really just having a variety of offerings for everyone to attract as wide a base as we can," said Groover.

"You could build something once you have teams in place and people that are really supportive and excited about it. It starts to kind of grow and then snowball as you've seen in a lot of these communities," added Coppedge.

The Town has started a Social District, and pointed to events like the Christmas Parade and Food Truck Rodeo as ongoing efforts to bring people downtown.

"We're so close to Raleigh and most people don't know that this little piece of downtown exists. It is really a gem all in and of itself," added Jemison.

Watch More Boomtowns Stories

Report a correction or typo

Copyright © 2025 WTVD-TV. All Rights Reserved.

GARNER, N.C. -- North Carolina is a state that is generally hostile to unions. Amazon is a company that is, historically, extremely hostile to unions. Now an upstart union is attempting to represent more than 4,000 Amazon workers at one of the online retailer's facilities there.

The National Labor Relations Board is overseeing a six-day vote starting Monday, with votes due to be counted Saturday. A win by the union, Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment, or CAUSE, in the town of Garner would be just the second Amazon facility to see a union win a representation vote, following a 2022 election at one of the company's major sorting and distribution centers in Staten Island, New York.

Amazon, the nation's second-largest private-sector employer, has faced increasing pressure from unions in recent months. And despite the fact that North Carolina has the lowest percentage of union membership among workers of any state - only 2.4% of workers overall, which is less than one-quarter of the national average - leaders of the union's efforts said that they are confident about the outcome of the vote.

"As you imagine Amazon has been doing everything to make sure we don't win," Italo Medelius-Marsano, an Amazon worker and one of the leaders of the campaign, told CNN. "The amount of money that Amazon is pouring into this, the people they're flying in to take us on, the propaganda - all of that tells us they're scared. That fear tells us that they know we're on the verge of something great."

The company said that it is confident that workers in Garner, a town of 35,000 just outside of Raleigh, want to keep the sorting and distribution warehouse union-free.

"We believe our employees favor opportunities to have their unique voice heard by working directly with our team," said a statement from Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards. "The fact is, Amazon already offers what many unions are requesting: safe, inclusive workplaces, competitive pay, industry-leading benefits."

The company said it pays workers in the facility a starting wage of $18.50 an hour and a top pay of $23.80 an hour. The union organizers said they'll be pressing for $30 an hour.

"I would challenge anyone to say $20 an hour is a livable wage here," said Medelius-Marsano. "In the Raleigh area, that's a slap in the face. Given the profits at Amazon and what it's worth, $30 an hour is incredibly reasonable."

Amazon has a market cap of $2.4 trillion and made $59 billion in net income in 2024, nearly double what it made the year before.

To become official, they need a majority vote but some workers like Cheryl Massingale, who's worked at the facility for four years, are voting no. She said it's not worth risking what they already have.

"We probably will get a raise but it will not be $30 an hour that's just not realistic here," Massingale said. "I'm sorry but if you want $30 an hour you should go work somewhere else."

Supporters are looking to their friends up north for a road to success. Members of the first Amazon facility to unionize in Staten Island New York joined them at their rally.

"It takes a lot of organizing, a lot of organizing a lot of persistence you're gonna get discouraged but you keep going," New York Amazon Union Leader Miss Mena said.

But they said one challenge is New York's laws are much more pro-union than North Carolina's.

"I know that the south is harder because of the right-to-work state, the laws are different here but you know the south is resilient, the people down here are resilient and the energy is high," said New York Amazon Union Leader, Chris Smalls.

Amazon's history of fighting union efforts

But even if the union wins, it could take years to negotiate a first contract. Amazon has continued to challenge the union representation vote it lost at the Staten Island facility in court, nearly three years after the NLRB certified the vote results. And it has refused to negotiate with the Amazon Labor Union, the upstart union that won the vote, or the Teamsters union, with which ALU members voted to affiliate last year.

"As we have shared before, we strongly disagree with the outcome of the election at (Staten Island)," said Hards. "Both the NLRB and the ALU improperly influenced the outcome and that is why we don't believe it represents what the majority of our team wants." The official total showed that 55% of the workers who voted supported the union.

Organizers in Garner said they have gotten support from other unions that are trying to organize other Amazon facilities and that it has learned from past union defeats at the company. Amazon has defeated union organizing votes twice at a facility in Bessemer, Alabama, as well as at a second Staten Island facility next to the one that voted for the union, as well as one just outside of Albany, New York.

But the organizers in North Carolina said the fact that theirs is an independent union is an advantage.

"Amazon paints us as an outside group," said Ryan Brown, a union organizer who was fired by Amazon in December, after five years at the company. "But the workers here know we're not outsiders. Those of us who have lived in the South all of our lives know our culture, which is that we're skeptical of strangers, of outsiders."

Brown and the union claim that his firing was due to his union activity. The company denies this, saying it was due to "repeated and well-documented incidents of misconduct."

But despite Amazon trying to hold back union representation, it has been facing greater pressure than ever before from union efforts.

Unions stepping up efforts at Amazon

Workers at Whole Foods in Philadelphia just became the first at the Amazon-owned grocery chain to vote for a union.

And the Teamsters announced a six-day strike just before Christmas.

In addition to the workers in Staten Island, that strike primarily involved drivers who deliver packages for Amazon exclusively but who the company argues are not its employees, because they officially work for "independent contractors."

CAUSE filed complaints of unfair labor practices against Amazon on Thursday, which is not unusual, as the company already has multiple such complaints filed against it with the NLRB. The labor agency staff and administrative law judges have found against Amazon in numerous cases.

One of those judges issued a decision finding substantiated unfair labor practice allegations against Amazon, requiring the court to set aside the 2022 rerun election in Alabama and ordering a third election there. But before that can happen that case needs to be considered by the agency's full board, and upon taking office, President Donald Trump fired a sitting NLRB board member for the first time in history, which means there is no longer the quorum necessary to hear such cases. The fired board member is challenging her dismissal in court.

So even if a union is to win the vote, it will face an uphill battle to win the contract it says its members deserve, given Amazon's track record fighting unionization efforts in the rest of the country. The union leaders said they're ready for that.

"When you look at the civil rights movement, it was years and years to get the justice some Americans weren't getting," said Brown. "I am committed to this fight for the rest of my life."

"The workers want Amazon to recognize their humanity and not treat them like a robot," said Medelius-Marsano. "Our cheap labor has helped produce so much wealth. But they won't even meet us halfway."

The-CNN-Wire & ABC11's Tom George contributed to this report

Report a correction or typo

A bill advancing in the North Carolina House would put the brakes on Garner's bid to expand its land-use planning authority to more areas in southeastern and south-central Wake County.

House Bill 173 would halt Garner's request to expand its extraterritorial jurisdiction, also known as ETJ, to the fast-growing areas around the final segment of the soon-to-be expanded Interstate 540 and U.S. Highway 401 in southern Wake County.

The bill would actually freeze all extraterritorial jurisdiction areas within their boundaries as of Jan. 1, 2025. However, bill sponsor Erin Paré, R-Wake, says Garner is the only municipality currently working on expanding its planning footprint.

"It's not taking a sledgehammer to this issue," Paré told the House State and Local Government committee Tuesday. "It does halt it for a temporary period of time."

Paré said people who own property in ETJs are under the authority of officials they cannot even vote for, since ETJs are by definition outside city limits.

"I think that it is absolutely appropriate to halt expansion and allow for collaboration between the property owners and the county and the town of Garner," Paré said. "I think that's what should happen anyway, and that's what this will facilitate."

Garner leaders are opposed to the bill.

Assistant Garner town manager John Hodges said its current ETJ expansion plan follows all state laws as well as Wake County's comprehensive plan. He said freezing it would be an "impediment to economic development."

"We have been working for years with the Turnpike Authority to plan for what things would look like in south Wake County once 540 was opened," Hodges said. "We've worked for years to ensure that there was infrastructure built into 540 so that utilities could be extended. And we're trying to meet the goals of 540 by creating job centers along the 540 corridor."

But the North Carolina Farm Bureau and the North Carolina Association of Realtors want to see the expansion halted.

"This General Assembly outlawed forced annexation, said Cady Thomas with NCAR. "ETJ is just an extension of forced annexation. You're putting people into a community that they did not ask to be in, they did not choose to move there, and they are now going to be forced to do with their property what someone says, and they cannot vote for those people."

Thomas said NCAR is in favor of economic development. But she said Garner should instead ask the Wake County Board of Commissioners to make the changes it wants. "That'd be by the people that those citizens can elect and vote for," she said.

The measure has two more committee stops before reaching the House floor, which could happen next week. It would then have to pass the Senate.

More On This