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.
113 Articles by: Eric Blanc
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.
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.
Can Boycotts Help Workers Win?
Consumer boycotts have a storied history in labor struggles like the United Farm Workers’ organizing campaigns in the 1970s. But they’re difficult to pull off. Veteran union organizer Stephen Lerner explains when a boycott can work for workers.
The Momentum Is on Labor’s Side Right Now
The US labor movement has a long way to go to reverse its decades of stagnation and decline. But it’s undeniable that things are currently looking up for unions — particularly in rank-and-file workers’ interest in organizing.
Workers Want to Unionize. Will Union Leaders Respond?
Conditions are ripe for labor’s revitalization. So why aren’t unions stepping up with massive financial and organizational support for workers’ organizing efforts?
A Trader Joe’s Worker Says She Was Fired for Organizing a Union. We Spoke to Her.
The latest union hot spot is a Trader Joe’s in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As at union drives at companies like Starbucks and Amazon, workers say Trader Joe’s has fired a key organizer for union activism. We talked to the fired worker about the campaign.
10 Years Ago Today, the Chicago Teachers Union Strike Changed Public Education
When the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike against Mayor Rahm Emanuel ten years ago, corporate education reform was on the march. The CTU won that strike, beat back the neoliberal Democrats, and turned the tide in favor of public education.
Chipotle Workers on How They Won the First Chipotle Union in the United States
Last month, Chipotle workers in Lansing, Michigan, became the first workers at the corporation to unionize. We spoke to three of the Chipotle workers and union activists about how they did it.
Comrade Thomas Piketty, Welcome to the Socialist Movement
For years, Thomas Piketty has articulated a cogent critique of 21st-century capitalism. He now appears to be moving beyond just critique to call for a 21st-century socialism.
Amazon Workers Are Organizing, and Elected Officials Are Supporting Them
A reborn workers’ movement needs both organized workplace militancy and left-wing politicians that back them. Sunday’s Staten Island Amazon rallies — attended by Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other elected officials — featured both.
The Workers Behind Amazon’s Historic First Union Explain How They Did It
Staten Island Amazon workers endured thunderstorms, racism, and arrests to organize in break rooms, bus stops, and grocery aisles to win their union — and one of the world’s most powerful companies couldn’t stop them. Here’s how they did it.
How Amazon’s Immigrant Workers Organized to Win a Union on Staten Island
Amazon Labor Union’s spectacular victory in Staten Island has rightly captured headlines across the country. A key part of this win, however, has not yet been explored: how immigrant workers organized each other to support the union.
Here’s How We Beat Amazon
Amazon workers in Staten Island have achieved the most important labor victory in the United States since the 1930s. Here’s an inside account of how they did it.
Minneapolis Educators Just Showed the Country How to Strike and Win
The Minneapolis teachers’ union just won a nearly three-week-long strike. We talked to two strike leaders about what they saw on the picket line and how militant unionism that fights for the whole working class can spread across the country.
Why Minneapolis Educators Are on Strike
Teachers and support staff in Minneapolis and Saint Paul say they’re no longer willing to let their students pay for the mistakes made by officials who’ve neglected and mismanaged the public education system. Now they’re on strike.
Yes, Social Media Can Help With Real-World Organizing
We can’t change the world just by posting on social media. But as the 2018 red state teachers’ strikes show, if organizers make strategic choices about their online organizing, social media can be used to build mass militant actions like strikes.
Socialists Should Take the Right Lessons From the Russian Revolution
Socialists have rightly taken inspiration from the Russian Revolution for generations, but many of the lessons drawn from it are wrong for our own time. To make change today, we need to take democratic socialism seriously as a theory and practice.
Nina Turner: “Good Ideas Are Not Enough, We Need to Marry Our Ideas to Power”
Former state senator and Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign cochair Nina Turner is running for Congress. In an interview with Jacobin, Turner reflects on the heartbreaks and new opportunities of both Bernie campaigns, the left agenda she will bring to Capitol Hill, and why policies like Medicare for All and a Green New Deal are racial justice issues.
The Birth of the Labour Party Has Many Lessons for Socialists Today
American leftists are constantly wrestling with the question of how to relate to the Democratic Party. The history of the UK Labour Party’s formation through a break with the Liberals a century ago is full of lessons for socialists today.