As Starbucks Workers United expands from shop to shop, workers face an onslaught of union-busting tactics. But union fever is spreading rapidly as workers at over 400 locations have filed petitions for union elections, with more planning to do so.
"The bosses acted as if women were unqualified to do anything except type, file, staple papers, collate, alphabetize and make photocopies and coffee,” said Ellen Cassedy, founder of 9 to 5, the national association of women office workers.
Nothing in the NLRA, however, requires a union to agree to a no-strike clause. Moreover, because a no-strike clause is a mandatory subject of bargaining, the union may strike to keep it out of the contract.
Largely ignored is the positive role veterans from working-class backgrounds have played in key labor and political struggles since the mid-20th century.
Mine workers at the Warrior Met coal mine in Alabama who walked off the job in April 2021 just decided to end their strike and go back to work.
Last year, the union membership rate fell by 0.2 percentage points to 10.1% — the lowest on record. The absolute number of American workers in unions did grow in 2022 — by approximately 200,000. But the number of non-union jobs grew faster.
Reversing tech companies’ state-by-state agenda to unravel workers’ rights and misclassify workers as ‘contractors’ in the gig economy and beyond.
2022 was yet another important year for the US labor movement, with organizing victories at major private employers and an increase in strikes across the country from the prior year.
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