The uptick in union organizing at brands like Amazon and Starbucks has rightly drawn attention from mainstream media. But worker organizing is underway at companies you’ve never heard of, too — and drawing little attention from outlets like the New York Times.
Logistics workers in Italy are beginning to fight back against companies like Amazon and IKEA.
Seattle socialist city council member Kshama Sawant prevailed over Amazon in her recent reelection. Sawant won by using the same strategies that make for successful workplace organizing — strategies that socialists around the country could take up against the corporate behemoths that want them to lose.
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.
All eyes are on Alabama as we await the results of the Amazon union election. The election is a historic one, but it shouldn’t be: workers shouldn’t have to work this hard to exercise their basic rights to unionize, and bosses at companies like Amazon should have zero say about whether they unionize or not.
If we're going to revive the labor movement, we need a strategy that's rooted in socialist principles but flexible enough to adjust to changing conditions in the US workforce.
Amazon was recently busted hiring intelligence experts to spy on Amazon workers. The practice is unfortunately common — most major multinational corporations have surveillance divisions which overlap with government intelligence agencies, creating a single, powerful security apparatus at the disposal of both the federal government and private corporations to use against workers.
The American labor movement remains weak. But from the sweeping Starbucks unionization drive to UAW reformers’ successful bid for union leadership, there were serious glimmers of hope in 2022 for a stronger, more assertive labor movement.
Canadian postal workers are striking for fair wages and better working conditions. This is putting them in direct conflict with the business model Amazon champions, where workers are treated as disposable and unions are crushed.
The union organizing campaign currently underway at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama could prove to be the most important labor fight in the South since the failure of Operation Dixie, the movement’s last large-scale push to organize the South in the late 1940s. The story of that historic effort holds lessons for the struggle today.
Amazon workers in Alabama are voting on whether to unionize, but the company is able to bombard them with anti-union propaganda. In Canada, by contrast, union votes are held quickly, making it harder for companies to stack the deck — a model that can work in the United States.
Today, workers at Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart, and Target are striking and asking customers to stage a one-day solidarity boycott. They’re fighting for what they deserve — and we should have their backs.
In the ongoing union drive in Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon is playing a massive role in influencing the outcome of the election. This should be a crime — bosses should be legally prohibited from interfering with their workers' union organizing.
A judge made Amazon rerun the union vote at its Bessemer, Alabama warehouse due to the illegal strong-arm tactics it used against workers. The new vote is about to take place — and Amazon is still using the same methods.
Billionaires like Jeff Bezos aren't obscenely wealthy because they work harder than everyone else or they're more innovative. They're obscenely wealthy because their corporate empires drain society's resources — and we'd all be better off without them.
Members of the Teamsters just voted to ratify a new contract at UPS. The union made big gains — but in opting not to strike over demands beyond wages, the Teamsters may have passed up a transformative opportunity for the labor movement.
Amazon is ramping up its anti-union tactics in Canada. But union organizers say Amazon’s American-style union busting won’t work in Quebec’s pro-labor environment.
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.
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.
In his final letter to shareholders before stepping down as Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos promised to do better by workers. Some in the media were impressed, but it’s a standard public relations move right out of the anti-union playbook.