There is quite a bit of exciting labor activity going on throughout the United States. According to several metrics, the present period seems so far to be one of labor ascendancy.

Union elections administered by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have been on the rise over the past few years, surging up from their pandemic lows by 53 percent between 2021 and 2022, and ticking up again modestly by another 3 percent between 2022 and 2023. Work stoppages have also been on the rise: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 459,000 workers struck in 2023, reaching a level not seen since the year 2000. The more inclusive Labor Action Tracker  placed the figure even higher, at 539,000 workers. The total number of union members also rose slightly in 2023, growing to 14.4 million workers, even as the union density rate remained largely unchanged (just 10 percent of the wage and salary labor force).

More significantly, the recent period has been a moment of sharp growth in organizing. This includes the highly visible Starbucks Workers United campaign (now with well over four hundred stores with certified unions), as well as organizing at other brand-name retail outlets, including Apple, Trader Joe’s, and REI. Across US college campuses, new graduate and undergraduate student unionization has taken off substantially; the Student Researchers United–UAW collective bargaining unit at the University of California was so large that its certification in 2021 increased national union density by 0.1 percent. There is also the unionization of the large Amazon warehouse JFK8 in Staten Island, New York, where workers continue their fight to negotiate a first contract.