Bet on Worker-to-Worker Organizing
There are no guarantees that any approaches, new or old, to reversing the labor movement’s decline will succeed. But Eric Blanc makes a case for why we should wager on worker-to-worker unionism.
110 Articles by: Eric Blanc
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Eric Blanc is an assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University. He blogs at the Substack Labor Politics and is the author of We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big.
Unions, Not Just Factories, Will Make America Great
Factory jobs are not inherently good jobs. Even if Donald Trump’s trade policies bring factories back to the United States, workers need unions to make those jobs well-paying and safe — and Trump has been the most anti-union president in years.
Stopping Donald Trump’s Anti-Union Offensive
Labor will only survive the Trumpification of America through confrontation.
Bernie Sanders and AOC’s Rallies Can Become a Mass Movement
The “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” rallies headlined by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can become something much bigger — if Bernie and AOC direct their rally attendees into sustained organizing efforts against Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
Federal Workers Can Defeat Elon Musk’s Coup. Here’s How.
Elon Musk would like you to think he is invincible right now. But the world’s richest man is actually extremely vulnerable to public pressure at the moment — public pressure that federal workers and their unions can take advantage of.
How Philly Whole Foods Workers Beat Jeff Bezos
In the face of what they say was a vicious anti-union campaign, and at a time of anti-worker right-wing advance nationally, Philadelphia Whole Foods workers successfully voted to form a union. We spoke to one of the workers about how they did it.
Donald Trump’s Anti-Union Offensive and How We Stop It
Donald Trump is rolling out a blitz of attacks on workers in hopes of paralyzing organized labor’s energy to fight back. But unions can only survive this onslaught by fighting, not by burying their heads in the sand.
Five Books on the Democrats and Labor
We asked scholar Eric Blanc to recommend reading on the party’s contentious relationship to the trade union movement.
Labor’s Resurgence Can Continue Despite Trump
Donald Trump will do his best to undermine unions. But the labor movement still has momentum on its side and numerous opportunities to seize. Trump’s presidency has to be a time for labor action, not despair.
Don’t Despair: Trump Isn’t Invincible
Donald Trump’s reelection is awful, but wallowing in misery only benefits his far-right agenda — and risks squandering the many opportunities we actually have to stop the worst of his plans.
Biden’s Labor Board Is Boosting Bottom-Up Union Organizing
To the surprise of many labor activists and leftists, Joe Biden’s National Labor Relations Board has boosted bottom-up unionism since 2020 — a fact that has key strategic implications for union revitalization efforts.
The New Labor Organizing Model of EWOC
Interest in unions and workplace organizing is high, but proactive workers have few opportunities to launch their own organizing drives. The Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee is trying to change that.
Jane McAlevey Believed Workers Can Win Everything
The late labor strategist Jane McAlevey’s horizons were never limited to winning particular campaigns or even to revitalizing unions. What she wanted above all, and what she believed was possible if our side got “serious,” was for workers to take power.
Unions Need to Lose More If They Want to Win More
The UAW’s defeat at a Mercedes plant in Alabama was crushing. It’s also the cost of waging risky, potentially transformative fights. If labor wants to win big, it can’t be afraid to lose big.
Labor Can Scale Up Its Recent Wins
Can the new models of union organizing coming out of recent high-profile campaigns like Starbucks be a potential way to capture the current upsurge of support for and interest in unions? Labor scholar Eric Blanc thinks they can.
Worker-to-Worker Unionism: A Model for Labor to Scale Up
At the heart of the current uptick in union organizing at companies like Starbucks has been “worker-to-worker unionism.” That model could be key to scaling up organizing and revitalizing the labor movement.
Workplace Fragmentation Demands New Organizing Strategies
In recent decades, structural changes in the US economy have dispersed workers across workplaces and geographic areas. Labor’s decline can’t be reversed without addressing this new reality.
Seven Lessons from Starbucks Workers’ Historic Victory
The entire labor movement should wake up and pay attention to the lessons from Starbucks workers’ victory this week.
The US Labor Movement Had a Banner Year in 2023
From logistics to Hollywood to higher ed to auto, 2023 saw a promising upsurge in US labor militancy. Unions must seize this historic opening to reverse decades of decline.
Young Workers Can Provide the Organizing Energy That Unions Desperately Need
Gen Z and Millennial workers overwhelmingly support unions, and they’re at the forefront of the current organizing upsurge. Labor can take advantage of this opening — if union leaders get off the sidelines and devote massive resources to new organizing.