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Benjamin Y. Fong is associate director of the Center for Work and Democracy at Arizona State University. He has a Substack focusing on labor and logistics called On the Seams.
In a slow month for large-unit elections, the United Steelworkers won a key victory at JSW Steel, which manufactures components for offshore wind turbines. Despite their green, ethical self-portrayal, the union says JSW fought them hard.
In the 1960s, psychedelics seemed to promise social progress. Today their proponents are all about self-optimization under capitalism.
In his new book, labor scholar Eric Blanc offers illuminating case studies of recent union victories. But it’s not clear that “worker-to-worker unionism” amounts to a widely applicable “emergent model” of unionism that can save the labor movement.
The largest NLRB union election win in February was at the primary care group Optum Care, a subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare. The vertical integration of health care has brought frustrating consequences for health workers, who are now organizing in response.
SEIU’s Committee of Interns and Residents won six NLRB elections in January 2025 involving 250 or more people. This string of victories has become somewhat commonplace for a rapidly growing union.
With the National Labor Relations Act now in the crosshairs of the Right, organized labor needs to confront an uncomfortable truth: even at its best, this framework has severe limitations. It’s time to explore alternatives.
In response to a successful unionization effort at a warehouse in Quebec, Amazon is shuttering its operations in the entire province. Its punitive behavior demonstrates that traditional organizing methods won’t work on the corporate behemoth.
During peak season, when Amazon’s holiday rush hits maximum velocity, the company’s finely tuned machine becomes surprisingly fragile. For workers seeking to organize, the high-stakes holiday months may be their strongest opportunity to exert leverage.
The recent longshore workers’ strike provoked pearl-clutching in the media about runaway salaries. But the notion of six-figure pay for blue-collar workers becomes less scandalous when we compare worker pay and purchasing power today to those in 1960.
When East and Gulf Coast longshoremen went on strike last week, their employers claimed to be unable to afford their wage demands. In truth, the shipping industry has seen unparalleled profits in recent years. The strike made them change their tune.
The famous Operation Dixie campaign to unionize the South in the 1940s was mostly unsuccessful. Still, it left a positive mark on American society. It’s even possible that the civil rights movement wouldn’t have staged the March on Washington without it.
The 1930s saw the biggest labor upsurge in US history. Just like today, there was economic discontent and a general pro-labor atmosphere. But labor didn’t just passively benefit. Instead, it saw its opportunity to act, building unions for the long haul.
A common view of the two major US labor federations of the 20th century is that the AFL was top-down while the CIO was bottom-up. In truth, the CIO’s success was owed to a potent mix of rank-and-file militancy and strategic leadership.
When they started strategically resisting the bosses’ divisive tactics, meeting racism with solidarity, San Francisco longshoremen went “from wharf rats to the lords of the docks.”
In the 1930s, labor unions were in bad shape. An imaginative new labor organization called the Congress of Industrial Organizations swept in and made them powerful and relevant. Now unions are in bad shape again, and the CIO’s history points the way out.
In the 1930s and ’40s, meatpacking employers used racial hiring policies as “strike insurance,” strategically fostering racism to discourage unionization. The Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee organized across racial lines and proved them wrong.
The United Electrical Workers emerged in the 1930s as a democratic union with an independent fighting spirit. It represented the promise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations — until it split from the CIO in an atmosphere of anti-communist red-baiting.
Jobs to Move America is pioneering an innovative labor strategy that turns public investments in green infrastructure and manufacturing into opportunities for union organizing and better working conditions.
Episode 6 of Organize the Unorganized takes a deep dive into several CIO union powerhouses, including the United Electrical Workers, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and others in textile and meatpacking industries.
Episode 5 of Organize the Unorganized: The Rise of the CIO tells the story of the Little Steel strike of 1937 and the brutal context of steel organizing in the US. It was a tragic failure and a major turning point for the CIO.