WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Larry Mabe’s story is like so many others working at Reynolds American Tobacco. “My dad and my mother worked here, and they retired from here,” he says.

Linda Jones has spent a lifetime in tobacco, too. “Thirty-three years ago, when I first started with the company, I planned on retiring from here and I still hope to,” she says.

But Mabe and Jones worry that a proposed $1 tax on cigarettes will put them out of a job. And they’re not alone. The signs now covering the front of Reynolds’ headquarters prove that many at the company — and in the tobacco industry as a whole — are worried.

On Tuesday, the signs will come down and be taken to Raleigh, where more than 400 Reynolds American employees plan to march around the Capitol and meet with legislators trying to get the tobacco tax out of the proposed state budget.

“We are hoping to convince our representatives that North Carolina needs more jobs,” said Jones. “We do not need more taxes. These taxes are critical to our jobs.”

Reynolds employees argue the tax will hurt jobs and, ultimately, affect the local and state economy. Officially, the company has said the proposed tax could drastically impact the more than 50,000 tobacco-related jobs in the state because it will make cigarettes too expensive.

Count Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines among those who agree: “To tax it unfairly is what our concern is. Some fee is appropriate, but to tax it unfairly is what our concern would be.”

Tuesday’s protest in Raleigh is nothing new for Reynolds employees. The company has taken workers to Washington, D.C., before.

“I’m hoping these people will listen to us when we get there. That’s what I am hoping,” said Mabe