Student workers across the country are engaged in an unprecedented wave of labor organization. Spurred on by the support of organizations like the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), of which I am cochair, undergraduate student workers have launched union drives on nearly thirty public and private campuses in the United States. These workers are fighting for increased pay, improvements to scheduling and hours, sick pay, and better health care. They are also fighting for issues that go beyond bread and butter, like removing Israeli products from dining halls.

This organizing isn’t restricted to the campus, either. In the past eighteen months, young workers at Starbucks, Chipotle, and Amazon — many of them students — have organized and won unions despite the union-busting efforts of their employers. The ongoing Writers Guild of America strike has drawn support from young people on social media, who have turned out to picket lines and organized actions on their campuses to support the union.

A potential strike at the United Parcel Service (UPS) this summer, which was authorized by 97 percent of UPS Teamsters last week, is indicative of the renewed militancy of the American labor movement. Young people, historically one of the most active political blocs in American life, are refusing to sit this moment out.