The Strike Is Workers’ Sharpest Tool. A Resurgent Labor Movement Must Be Willing to Use It.
We have a rare opportunity to rebuild a fighting labor movement in the United States. To take advantage of it, workers must be armed with battle-tested strategies and tactics — and that means being willing to go on strike.
Demonstrators during the “Fight Starbucks Union Busting” rally in Seattle, Washington, on Saturday, April 23, 2022. (David Ryder / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
To the horror of the billionaire class, American workers are beginning to organize in their workplaces with an energy not seen in decades.
It began last fall with “Striketober,” a season of major strikes at John Deere, Nabisco, Kellogg’s, and elsewhere. Striketober was followed by a nationwide unionization drive by Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), which is still ongoing. Workers at forty Starbucks stores have won their union elections, and organizing committees have been declared in over 240 stores.
And in a historic vote at New York’s JFK8 warehouse, workers have won the first-ever Amazon union on US soil. With eight thousand workers, JFK8 is one of the biggest new unionized sites in decades. Workers at one hundred other Amazon facilities, along with workers at Walmart and Target, have since reached out to the independent Amazon Labor Union (ALU) to find out how to replicate this success in their workplaces.
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