For decades, US-based corporate giants such as Amazon, Starbucks, and Apple perfected an anti-union strategy that they believed to be foolproof. While the media made much of these companies’ offerings of above-market wages, college tuition benefits, health insurance, and liberal mission statements, workers were well aware of the iron fist beneath the velvet glove. Workers who did try to organize, such as tech workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Virginia in 2016, watched their campaigns slip away amid a barrage of threats, interrogation, surveillance, and retaliation.

Today the landscape looks very different. Both Amazon and Starbucks face union challenges on the very scale their anti-union programs were designed to prevent. Desperate to fend off union victories, both firms have become reckless — so much so that their actions may unintentionally tilt labor law in workers’ favor.