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In 2009-2010, during the campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act, it was rare to encounter anyone without a professional labor interest who had ever heard of the legislation, which attracted only lackluster support from the Obama White House and died in the Senate.Īt present, the Biden-supported legislation aimed at strengthening the right to choose a union, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, is firmly on the back burner despite support from a majority of voters. In the past, lack of public awareness has helped torpedo labor law reform campaigns. And growing awareness of the issue could have an impact on efforts to improve the legislative environment for unionizing.Ī recent poll found that 59% of respondents supported strengthening labor laws through proposals such as penalizing companies that retaliate against workers trying to unionize and eliminating “right-to-work” laws that allow employees to benefit from union contracts without paying dues. The issue of labor rights has seemingly garnered the nation’s attention like nothing I have seen in my lifetime or even in the past half-century. In addition, most Americans think union decline has hurt working people. In fact, at 68%, support for unions is at its highest level since 1965. It corresponds to almost record-high rates of public approval in unions. Into this decline has come a recent wave of positive press for unions. This decline correlates with the growing weakness of unions over that period: Unions represent only 10.8% of American workers today, down from 20% four decades ago.
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Labor organizing terms have dwindled in publications. The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post ran with: “Labor board calls for revote at Amazon warehouse in Alabama in major victory for union.” “Amazon made ‘free and fair’ Bessemer union election ‘impossible,’ labor official rules,” ran the headline of the Alabama news site Al.com. The NLRB decision provided negative headlines for Amazon.
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It generated media coverage of Amazon’s anti-union behavior and even arguably helped revive the so-called “labor beat” in newsrooms after years of languishing. The organizing drive at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama by the Retail, Wholesale Department Store Union from January to March 2021 was one of the most closely watched union campaigns in decades. 9, making them the coffee chain’s only unionized workforce in the United States in what has been touted as a “watershed” moment.Īs a labor scholar who has tracked unionization efforts for 20 years, I believe we could be on the cusp of a new labor relations order, spurred in large part by increased media and public interest generated by these high-profile campaigns. Meanwhile in Buffalo, New York, baristas at Starbucks voted to unionize on Dec. In the decision, the NLRB attacked Amazon’s “flagrant disregard” for election rules, saying it “essentially hijacked the process.” The online retail giant won the union vote, held earlier this year, by a 2-1 margin but will now be forced into a do-over election. 29, 2021, decision, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Amazon had committed serious violations of federal labor law during a union campaign at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. Union drives have suddenly become hot news.
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Unions on the rise? AP Photo/Joshua Bessex