Starbucks Workers United has already organized 146 locations in about six months. While that’s a fraction of Starbucks’ 9,000 US stores, it’s one of the most successful labor campaigns in decades.
Amazon has historically opposed trade union recognition by engaging in union suppression practices, like resisting trade union recognition through coercion.
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Amazon can become the Earth’s best employer, but this must involve democratizing the workplace, recognizing the legitimate right of employees to organize and cooperating with labour representatives.
The start of a movement or a moment?
AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez
Successful union drives at two of America’s biggest companies were led by committed individuals, rather than established unions.
The Brooklyn Nets’ Kyrie Irving is paying the price for ignoring New York City’s vaccinate mandate – and his union’s decision to allow it.
AP Photo/Elise Amendola
Jeffrey Hirsch, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The reasons have a lot to do with the nature of unions as representative of workers’ views, as well as the importance of protecting their right to bargain.
Warehouse workers at an Amazon facility in Bessemer, Ala., recently tried, and failed, to form a union.
(AP Photo/Jay Reeves
Although it covers only about 6,000 workers, the election could result in the first unionized Amazon facility in the US and have broader ramifications for the labor movement.
Many essential workers believe joining a union could provide more protections.
AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes
The coronavirus pandemic highlights the importance of ensuring safe workspaces, and a new study suggests unionization leads workers to speak up about poor conditions.
Rite Aid hired anti-union consultants to try to prevent workers from successfully organizing.
Amy Niehouse/Flickr
American workers tend to lack many basic benefits that are incredibly common in other countries, a situation the ‘Essential Worker Bill of Rights’ aims to remedy.
Joe Biden was among the top candidates who met with Unite Here culinary workers in Las Vegas.
MediaPunch/IPX/Damairs Carter
All seven Democrats set to take the stage on Dec. 19 had vowed to boycott the debate in support of a union that represents 150 food service workers in California.
Jimmy Hoffa waves to delegates at the opening of the 1957 Teamsters Union convention in Miami Beach, Florida.
AP Photo
The Uber driver walkout raises questions about how workers can fight for better pay and benefits in the age of the gig economy – a topic frequently on the minds of Conversation scholars.
The future of work could look more like this.
BigBlueStudio/Shutterstock.com
While some alarmists predict AI will decimate the workforce, the truth is concerted action by leaders in labor, business, government and education can ensure workers aren’t replaced by robots.
Seattle shipyard workers in 1919 as they walk off the job.
Museum of History & Industry
Thomas Kochan, MIT Sloan School of Management; Duanyi Yang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Erin L. Kelly, MIT Sloan School of Management, and Will Kimball, MIT Sloan School of Management
Americans want more say about their benefits, training and other important issues at work.
Nevada unions have been successful in part because of their political engagement.
AP Photo/Isaac Brekken
While the Supreme Court’s Janus ruling dealt a blow to organized labor, three lessons from Nevada’s unions suggest things aren’t as bleak as they appear.
A ruling in the Janus case could devastate unions.
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Although over 200 CEOs have promised to share windfalls from the recent tax cut with their employers – something the president is likely to bring up in the State of the Union – research suggests workers aren’t holding their breath.
The first Labor Day was hardly a national holiday. Workers had to strike to celebrate it.
Frank Leslie's Weekly Illustrated Newspaper's September 16, 1882
The holiday began as a strike against excessive workweeks but now bears little resemblance to its worker-centric origins, even as the founders’ gains are slowly lost.