Trader Joe’s Workers Are Carrying Out an Experiment in Independent Unionism
Independent unions are a real rarity in the US labor movement. But at multiple stores across the country, Trader Joe’s workers are organizing outside of established unions.
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How Customer Service Surveys Are Eroding Workers’ Rights
The use of customer reviews to evaluate workers is rising across the service sector. Once you get past the shiny rhetoric of consumer empowerment, it’s a new variation on an old story: enlisting customers on the side of management to help discipline and exploit workers.
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.
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.
Apple Store Workers Want to Unionize. Apple Is Union Busting.
Workers at an Apple Store in Kansas City say they were fired in retaliation for trying to form a union. It’s another episode in the wave of labor organizing hitting big corporations in the US — and those corporations responding with illegal union busting.
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.
Everything Is Becoming a Bank
Most major corporations — from airlines to social media platforms — now aspire to become unregulated banks. Bankification today accounts for the highest profit margins in the US economy, crippling productive capacity and setting the stage for the next crash.
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.
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.
Salt the Earth
Young people looking to fight climate change should consider jobs in strategic industries to organize new unions or revitalize old ones and advocate for green, pro-labor policies. The fight for a livable future can’t be won without organized labor.
Let Workers Lead
The “worker-to-worker” organizing model adopted by many of the most dynamic unions and campaigns in the country has enormous promise for revitalizing labor — in large part because it puts workers themselves in the drivers’ seat.
Hope Springs Eternal
When and where organized labor’s been on the move.
The NLRB Can’t Punish Employers Strongly Enough
The problem of case backlogs at the National Labor Relations Board goes deeper than budget shortfalls. Without serious penalties for employers who break the law, the board will continue to be hampered by a pileup of charges.
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 Must Take Up the Fight for Abortion Rights
In the labor movement, we are only as strong as the weakest among us. Revoking the right to abortion undercuts much of the workforce’s bargaining power — which means reproductive freedom is a cause the entire labor movement must champion.
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.
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.
A Tidal Wave of State and Private Repression Is Targeting Pro-Palestinian Voices
Critics of Israel’s merciless war on Gaza are facing threats of government prosecution and blacklists or firings. In this neo-McCarthyist environment, anything pro-Palestine is being made to carry the whiff of bigotry or even incitement to violence.
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.
Let’s Get to Work
"Salting" built the early American labor movement — and it can revive it today.