A third Trader Joe’s store location has just voted to unionize, this one in the notoriously anti-union South. “If a Trader Joe’s in Louisville, Kentucky, can do this,” says an organizer, “any Trader Joe's across the country can do this.”
Michigan’s repeal of its “right-to-work” law could be a huge boon to labor — not because of the technicalities of the law itself, but because the entire country is hearing the message that the state will not tolerate flagrant union busting.
A new report confirms that insecure and precarious work is widespread across the economy. To respond meaningfully to the needs of workers, the labor movement must grapple with the harmful impacts of precarity.
Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein reflects on his long life and career, including Berkeley in the 1960s, Walter Reuther and the early UAW, Walmart, Bill Clinton, and much more.
With its ongoing strike against the Big Three, the UAW is attempting to recapture the fighting spirit of its heroic early days. The union’s militant approach marks a sharp break with the recent past — and could spark more insurgency across the labor movement.
After securing historic deals with the Big Three automakers, the UAW is continuing to go on the offensive. It has set its sights on nonunion automakers, from Toyota and Hyundai in the South to Tesla in California.
A Teamster organizer reflects on 2023, a year of labor upsurge: “Corporate America, you’re on notice — we’re not fucking around.”
New figures show that US union density dropped again last year, despite high-profile strikes. We should admit that we don’t know exactly what will turn things around for labor, other than bold experimentation.
At a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and a Mercedes factory in Vance, Alabama, the United Auto Workers have filed for union elections. If the UAW wins, it would be a major victory against anti-union bulwarks.
Bowlero, the biggest bowling company in the world, has grown rapidly in recent years. Fueled by private equity groups, the firm’s expansion has ruined the beloved pastime for many while its executives pull in massive profits.
The labor movement and the Palestinian solidarity effort have common enemies, and not just on principle. Some of the biggest donors to the pro-Israel electoral machine are also financing the United States’s union-busting infrastructure.
Amid soaring temperatures across the US, workers at risk of heat stroke and death on the job are demanding better protections. In some cases, the threat of overheating has fueled unionization efforts and innovative demands like heat pay.
In the United States and Canada, we’ve seen an increase in labor militancy. This upsurge is a chance to inject working-class politics into the political arena, which has so far been mostly unresponsive to workers’ demands.
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.
Twenty-five years ago today, a broad progressive coalition of protesters blocked and eventually shut down the Seattle World Trade Organization meetings. A longtime activist-journalist reflects on the long twists and shifts made by the American left since then.
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.
Organizing logistics behemoths like Amazon and Walmart will require the labor movement to figure out how to disrupt the flow of goods across the supply chain rather than simply organizing individual workplaces — and that requires a major rethinking of organizing strategy.
Labor has seen a jolt of new energy recently. Across the United States, museum workers are part of that upsurge.
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.
Two key questions confront labor: should unions focus on organizing workers with major strategic leverage in the economy? Or should they welcome any workers willing to fight, since that organizing can constitute a major catalyst for other workers?