Unionization Is Starting to Spread Across the Retail Sector

Inspired by the recent wave of union campaigns at Starbucks and Amazon, retail workers at major chains like Target are launching new organizing drives across the United States.

We Are in a Unique Moment of Labor Upsurge That Requires Rethinking the Old Organizing Rules

Amazon and Starbucks workers have upended the old common sense for how to organize unions. Union leaders need to retool their organizing tactics to fit a moment when workers are leading the way.

Right Now Is the Most Exciting Moment to Join the Labor Movement in Decades

This May Day, don’t hang your head for the labor movement’s defeat. US unions are weak, it’s true. But there’s more excitement, more of a spirit of militancy and experimentation, and more hope in today’s labor movement than there has been in a long time.

The Barnes & Noble Union Fight Is Spreading

The union drive at Barnes & Noble has now spread to six of the national bookseller's locations, attempting to organize the bookstore giant on a store-by-store basis. It could be a key front in the fight to unionize the US culture industry.

Baristas of the World, Unite

Following on the heels of the union drive at Starbucks, a growing number of campaigns have appeared to organize coffee shops. In Pittsburgh, baristas at Coffee Tree Roasters, a local company with five stores, are unionizing with the UFCW.

Our Current Moment of Increased Labor Organizing Could Become Something Much Bigger

Trying to win progressive change without rebuilding the labor movement is a fool’s errand. That’s why the union victories at Starbucks and Amazon are so promising: the current uptick in labor militancy could become a transformational upsurge.

The First Principle of Union Organizing: Spontaneity Isn’t Enough

The seemingly spontaneous upsurges at companies like Starbucks and Amazon are an inspiring sign of life within the workers’ movement. But spontaneity is nowhere near enough to turn labor’s dismal fortunes around.

Don’t Fall for the Myth of the “Job Creator”

Billionaires like Howard Schultz like to claim that that we should be grateful for all the jobs they create. But the ultrarich don’t create jobs in any meaningful sense — they just reap the rewards of asset ownership and the labor of their workers.

The Window at Starbucks

Undergraduate Worker Unions Are Taking Off

At colleges around the US, undergraduate workers are unionizing. The growing movement not only builds worker power on campuses but can help make university students into lifelong trade unionists.

Democrats Are Lining Restaurant Owners’ Pockets — and Abandoning Restaurant Workers

A $42 billion bailout for the restaurant industry is advancing in Congress. It contains zero substantive relief measures for restaurant workers.

Trader Joe’s Workers Are Unionizing — and the Company Is Union Busting

Two Trader Joe’s stores have now unionized, raising the question of whether the chain could be the next Starbucks. But the company may at least be following in Starbucks’s footsteps in one way — by engaging in illegal union busting.

Bernie Sanders Is About to Publicly Roast Capitalists in Front of the Nation

Bernie Sanders will soon use his new role as chair of a key Senate committee to put CEOs in the hot seat. Progressive elected officials should look to Sanders for how to keep public attention laser-focused on the crimes of the executive class.

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.

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.

The Unionization Wave Is Now Hitting Chipotle

Chipotle workers in Lansing, Michigan, have organized the first-ever union at the company. Could Chipotle be the next Starbucks, with unionization efforts spreading like wildfire?

Barboncino Workers Are Forming New York City’s First Unionized Stand-Alone Pizzeria

Workers at the Crown Heights pizzeria Barboncino are organizing a union with Workers United. It would be the first pizzeria of its kind to go union in New York — and perhaps not the last.

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.

Democracy Requires Disempowering the Supreme Court

New rulings on presidential immunity, workers’ rights, and Chevron deference make it clear: we can have social progress, or we can have a powerful Supreme Court, but we can’t have both.

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.