OnLabor

With more than 1.5 million employees globally, Amazon is among the largest and most influential employers in the United States. Until recently, it was also considered unorganizable, in large part due to the firm’s willingness to oppose unionization at all costs. That perception changed recently when the Amazon Labor Union, led by Christian Smalls, succeeded in winning a union election campaign at an Amazon warehouse on Long Island. Attention now turns to the ALU’s efforts to secure a contract and to organize more Amazon workers.

A bellwether company in the U.S., Starbucks — despite its “progressive” reputation — has enacted vicious anti-union policies. And yet, workers at hundreds of Starbucks stores across the country have succeeded in organizing and winning union representation. Predictably, Starbucks is dragging out the bargaining process, violating workers’ labor rights, and continuing to interfere with employees’ choice to join a union.

With a Democratic majority on the Board and an admirably ambitious General Counsel, the Biden NLRB promises to be among the most consequential in history.