“Premajority Unionism” Is Not a Promising Path for Labor
“Premajority unionism” is a new term for corporate campaigns, in which workers try to win concessions from employers using channels outside the workplace, like investor pressure and appeals to the public. Such efforts are not likely to achieve much.
Corporate campaigns and alt-labor agitating certainly can yield some wins here and there, but it is not always clear whether a given win is actually the result of a campaign. (Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images)
Over at Capital & Main, Jesse Baum has a report about the successes of “premajority unionism”:
What [Dollar General stocker David] Williams needed, he thought, was a better job. He wasn’t looking to unionize his workplace — a tall order in the right-to-work South. He just needed things to change.
In 2022, Williams joined an organization that seemed, to him, like his best shot: Step Up Louisiana. Like several successful campaigns before it, Step Up organizes workers to improve their jobs, but stops short of calling for a union under the National Labor Relations Board. The approach, sometimes referred to as “premajority unionism,” is a natural fit for places like the South, with histories of public hostility to unions. Today, suggest experts, it may also be workers’ best bet for building power amid the hostility of the Trump administration.
The story discusses three recently successful efforts to improve working conditions:
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