labor Labor Stories of the Year

The year has been characterized by incredible solidarity, as Starbucks and Amazon workers challenged our conceptions of political possibility and galvanized a resurgent labor movement. It was a year of taking power to task, from the fearless Warrior Met strike to the militance of worker-led, independent union drives at Amazon, Trader Joe's and Chipotle.

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Chris Smalls in the foreground with a megaphone with a rally of workers behind him.
Against all odds, Amazon workers in New York organized a successful union against one of the biggest companies in the world. Here’s how.,Illustrations by Annee Schwank

An illustration of Amazon workers.

These Are The Workers Who Took on Amazon, and Won
By Luis Feliz Leon

Against all odds, Amazon workers in New York organized a successful union against one of the biggest companies in the world. Here’s how.

People gathered in Reno, Nevada on May 14 to voice their displeasure with the Supreme Court's leaked document that likely signals the over turn of Roe v. Wade.

How Unions Are Fighting to Protect Abortion Rights
By C.M. Lewis

From collective bargaining to creative use of release time, unions can defend the reproductive freedom of their members. Here’s how some are doing it.

Starbucks employees celebrate after the votes are counted, on December 9, 2021 in Buffalo, New York. Employees of three Starbucks cafes in Buffalo created the first union at outlets owned by the retail coffee giant in the United States.

How Amazon and Starbucks Workers Are Upending the Organizing Rules
By Chris Brooks

Workers are leading. Unions should support them or get out of the way.

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Trader Joe's union logo

Independent Unions Are Great—And Proof of Labor's Broken Institutions
By Hamilton Nolan

The inspiring wave of independent labor organizing also represents the failure of existing unions.

Workers on strike with UE

Damning Report Shows Unions Have Plenty of Money to Organize—They Just Don't Spend It
By Hamilton Nolan

For the past decade, organized labor has gotten richer even as it watched its membership decline.

Hundreds of members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) march to the Manhattan headquarters of BlackRock, the largest shareholder in the mining company Warrior Met Coal, on November 04, 2021 in New York City.

500 Days Into the Warrior Met Coal Strike, Where Are Joe Biden and the Democrats?
By Jacob Morrison

As Alabama miners fight for their rights, Democratic leaders are largely absent.

A sign at a Burger King franchise in Danville, Pennsylvania announces that it is hiring at $11 an hour.

The “Labor Shortage” Is Being Used as a Pretext to Harm Workers
By Sarah Lazare

Lawmakers and bosses are citing a supposed lack of workers as justification for a suite of reactionary policies aimed at further squeezing the working class.

Protesting janitors march outside Twitter's San Francisco office, December 5.

Elon Musk’s Takeover Through The Eyes of Twitter’s Janitors
By Teddy Ostrow

Three weeks before the holidays, Twitter laid off its custodial staff. We spoke to them on what they saw at HQ.

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