By John Logan
Apr 10, 2022
April 1, 2022, may go down as a pivotal day in the history of American unions.
In a result that could reverberate in workplaces across the U.S., the independent Amazon Labor Union — first formed in 2020 by Chris Smalls, an Amazon worker who was fired for protesting what he saw as inadequate COVID-19 safety precautions — got the better of the previously successful anti-union efforts of the online retailer. It means that Smalls’ warehouse in the Staten Island borough of New York will be the first to have a unionized workforce.
On the same day, Starbucks Workers United — an organization affiliated with Service Employees International Union — won yet another election, making it 10 out of 11 wins for the union since first succeeding in Buffalo, N.Y., in December 2021. This time, it was the chain’s flagship roastery in New York City that opted to unionize. The organizing campaign has now spread to over 170 Starbucks stores nationwide. Several more Starbucks elections will take place in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, a rerun election at a Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., will depend on the outcome of several hundred contested ballots. Even if Amazon wins, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union has — at the very least — came tantalizingly close in what was deemed a long-shot union vote.
Something is definitely happening in the labor movement.
A different kind of organizing
As a scholar of the labor movement who has observed union drives for two decades, what I find almost as striking as the victories is the unconventional nature of the organizing campaigns. Both the Starbucks and Amazon-Staten Island campaigns have been led by determined young workers.
Inspired by pro-union sentiment in political movements, such as Bernie Sanders’ presidential bids, Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Socialists of America, these individuals are spearheading the efforts for workplace reform rather than professional union organizers. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find many experienced organizers among the recent successful campaigns.
Instead, the campaigns have involved a significant degree of “self-organization” — that is, workers “talking union” to each other in the workplace and coffee shops and reaching out to colleagues in other shops in the same city and across the nation. This marks a sea change from the way the labor movement has traditionally operated, which has tended to be more centralized and led by seasoned union officials.
A labor revival
Perhaps more important than the victories at Starbucks and Amazon are their potential for creating a sense of optimism and enthusiasm around union organizing, especially among younger workers.
The elections follow years of union decline in the U.S. — both in terms of membership and influence.
Prior to the pandemic, these recent labor wins would have seemed unimaginable. Powerful, wealthy corporations like Amazon and Starbucks appeared invincible then, at least in the context of National Labor Relations Board rules, which are stacked heavily against pro-union workers. Under those rules, Amazon and Starbucks can — and do — force workers, on the threat of dismissal, to attend anti-union sessions, often led by highly paid external consultants.
Starbucks has said it has been “consistent in denying any claims of anti-union activity.” But in March 2022, the NLRB alleged that the chain had coerced workers, placed union supporters under surveillance and retaliated against them. Similarly, Amazon — which has in the past advertised for analysts to monitor “labor-organizing threats,” has said it respects workers’ rights to join or not join unions.
The significance of the recent victories is not primarily about the 8,000 new union members at Amazon or those at Starbucks. It is about instilling the belief that if unionization can work there, it can work anywhere.
Historic precedents show that labor mobilization can be infectious.
In 1936 and 1937, workers General Motor’s plant in Flint, Mich., brought the automaker to its knees with a sit-down strike that inspired similar action elsewhere. In the words of a Chicago doctor explaining a subsequent sit-down strike by wet nurses there, “They want to strike because everyone else is doing it.”
Perhaps more important than the victories at Starbucks and Amazon are their potential for creating a sense of optimism and enthusiasm around union organizing, especially among younger workers.
The elections follow years of union decline in the U.S. — both in terms of membership and influence.
Prior to the pandemic, these recent labor wins would have seemed unimaginable. Powerful, wealthy corporations like Amazon and Starbucks appeared invincible then, at least in the context of National Labor Relations Board rules, which are stacked heavily against pro-union workers. Under those rules, Amazon and Starbucks can — and do — force workers, on the threat of dismissal, to attend anti-union sessions, often led by highly paid external consultants.
Starbucks has said it has been “consistent in denying any claims of anti-union activity.” But in March 2022, the NLRB alleged that the chain had coerced workers, placed union supporters under surveillance and retaliated against them. Similarly, Amazon — which has in the past advertised for analysts to monitor “labor-organizing threats,” has said it respects workers’ rights to join or not join unions.
The significance of the recent victories is not primarily about the 8,000 new union members at Amazon or those at Starbucks. It is about instilling the belief that if unionization can work there, it can work anywhere.
Historic precedents show that labor mobilization can be infectious.
In 1936 and 1937, workers General Motor’s plant in Flint, Mich., brought the automaker to its knees with a sit-down strike that inspired similar action elsewhere. In the words of a Chicago doctor explaining a subsequent sit-down strike by wet nurses there, “They want to strike because everyone else is doing it.”
IT WAS NORTH AMERICA WIDE AS NEWSPAPERS OF THE DAY TESTIFY TO SUCH AS THE REPORT THE STUDENTS IN WINNEPEG STUDENTS WENT OF A SIT DOWN STRIKE SAYING THEY HAD BEEN INSPIRED BY THE CIO ORGANIZING DRIVE
Seizing the moment
The pandemic has created an opportunity for unions.
After working on the front lines for over two years during the pandemic, many essential workers like those at Amazon and Starbucks think they have not been adequately rewarded or treated with respect.
This appears to have helped spur the popularity of the Amazon Labor Union and Starbucks Workers United.
The homegrown nature of these campaigns deprives Amazon and Starbucks of a decades-old trope at the heart of corporate anti-union campaigns: that a union is an external “third party” that doesn’t understand or care about the concerns of employees and is more interested in collecting dues.
Those arguments ring hollow when the people doing the unionizing are colleagues they work alongside day in and day out.
An unfavorable legal landscape
This “self-organization” at Starbucks and Amazon is consistent with what was envisioned by the authors of the 1935 Wagner Act, the statute that provides the foundation of today’s union representation procedures.
The National Labor Relations Board’s first chair, J. Warren Madden, understood that self-organization could be fatally undermined if corporations were allowed to engage in anti-union pressure tactics:
“Upon this fundamental principle — that an employer shall keep his hands off the self-organization of employees — the entire structure of the act rests,” he wrote. “Any compromise or weakening of that principle strikes at the root of the law.”
Over the past half-century, anti-union corporations and their consultants and law firms — assisted by Republican-controlled NLRBs and right-wing judges — have undermined that process of worker self-organization by enabling union elections to become employer-dominated.
For the long-term decline in union membership to be reversed, I believe pro-union workers need stronger protections. Labor-law reform is essential.
Dispelling fear, futility and apathy
Lack of popular interest has long been an obstacle to labor-law reform.
Meaningful reform is unlikely unless people are engaged with the issues, understand them and believe they have a stake in the outcome.
But media interest in the campaigns at Starbucks and Amazon suggests the public may finally be paying attention.
It isn’t known where this latest movement — or moment — will lead. It could evaporate or it may spark a wave of organizing across the low-wage service sector, stimulating a national debate over workers’ rights in the process.
The biggest weapons that anti-union corporations have in suppressing labor momentum are the fear of retaliation and a sense that unionization is futile. The recent successes show unionizing no longer seems so frightening or so futile.
John Logan is a professor and director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University. He wrote this for The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.
Lack of popular interest has long been an obstacle to labor-law reform.
Meaningful reform is unlikely unless people are engaged with the issues, understand them and believe they have a stake in the outcome.
But media interest in the campaigns at Starbucks and Amazon suggests the public may finally be paying attention.
It isn’t known where this latest movement — or moment — will lead. It could evaporate or it may spark a wave of organizing across the low-wage service sector, stimulating a national debate over workers’ rights in the process.
The biggest weapons that anti-union corporations have in suppressing labor momentum are the fear of retaliation and a sense that unionization is futile. The recent successes show unionizing no longer seems so frightening or so futile.
John Logan is a professor and director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University. He wrote this for The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.
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