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.
The ongoing union drive at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, could prove to be a key beachhead for union organizing in the South. But it’s not the first time Bessemer has seen union fights. Nearly a century ago, the town was home to anti-racist union organizing with the Communist-led union Mine-Mill.
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.
Coupang is South Korea’s answer to Amazon. Just like the American retail behemoth, Coupang’s business model depends on abusing its workers.
Since 2018, Bernie has publicly taken on the CEOs of Amazon, Walmart, Delta, McDonald’s, and more — and he shows no sign of relenting. His willingness to pick fights with ultrarich executives paying poverty wages sets him apart from other Democratic candidates.
It’s not enough for Starbucks to carry out a scorched-earth campaign to destroy workers’ union organizing campaign. The company is now implementing Trump-like attacks on the legitimacy of union elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.
This month, Bernie Sanders got the chance to talk to Amazon Labor Union organizers at a Jacobin event. He told them that he will do everything he can to see their efforts spread all over this country.
Most new architecture, like Amazon’s proposed new HQ, is hideous. That’s because it is made for corporations. Despite all the mistakes and brutalities of the Soviet experiment, at least their architecture was designed to serve the people instead.
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.
Under finance capitalism, we can exert power by collectively leveraging not just our labor but also our debts. This May Day, let's think about worker organizing and debtor organizing as part of the same struggle.
Labor strategist Jane McAlevey offers her take on why Amazon workers were defeated in their recent Bessemer, Alabama union drive.
Everyone knows it’s extremely difficult to organize a union in the US. Two often-overlooked reasons why: media consolidation and a dearth of public spaces where workers can come together, socialize, and organize.
The failed Amazon union drive in Alabama is a stark reminder of a basic fact of life under capitalism: it’s always easier for bosses to destroy a fledgling unionization effort than it is for workers to get together and fight for their own interests.
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.
For years, David Keeling oversaw health and safety operations at companies where workers fell ill and died in extreme heat. If confirmed as the head of OSHA, he could help their campaign to block federal heat protection rules.
Bosses like management at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, where workers are trying to unionize, love to bring up union dues as part of their union-busting. But union organizers shouldn’t shy away from talking about why dues are important: they allow workers to pool the resources needed to fight the boss and win.
Last month, workers at a Whole Foods Market in Philadelphia filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board, the first such filing since Amazon took over the grocery chain in 2017. We spoke with some of the workers about the union drive.
At last weekend’s Teamsters for a Democratic Union convention, nearly 400 rank-and-file Teamsters convened to discuss taking power in their union and organizing Amazon.
The music industry is making money hand over fist, but life for average musicians remains incredibly precarious. But musicians aren’t temporarily embarrassed millionaires — they’re workers. And like any other worker, the solution to their problem is collective organizing.