The Retail Union Fight
Employees everywhere are organizing. Here’s why it’s happening now
After years of declining influence, unions are having a resurgence. Employees from companies across the country are increasingly organizing as a means of asking for more benefits, pay and safety from their employers.

Between October 2021 and March of this year, union representation petitions filed at the NLRB increased 57% from the same period a year ago, according to recent data from the U.S. National Labor Relations Board. Unfair labor practice charges increased 14% during the same period.

More than 250 Starbucks locations filed petitions, and after notching a first win late last year, 54 Starbucks company-owned stores have formally organized. Workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York City recently voted to form the first union at the second-largest U.S. private employer and join the Amazon Labor Union. Google Fiber contractors in Kansas City successfully voted to unionize their small office in March becoming, the first workers with bargaining rights under the one year-old Alphabet Workers Union.

These efforts are resonating with the broader public. A Gallup poll conducted last September showed 68% percent of Americans approve of labor unions — the highest rate since 71% in 1965.

- Experts say the biggest factor was the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The pandemic was the wakeup call or the catalyst that has prompted two perspectives: ‘is there another way to work and live?’ and the relationship between employers with workers,” said former NLRB chairman and current Georgetown Law professor Mark Pearce. “The vulnerable workers — they were not only scared, they were pissed.”

“A lot of people said ‘I’m seeing my family members die and my friends die and we were suddenly faced with our own mortality but a lot of organizations still expected you to work just as hard or harder.’”

Retail workers had to enforce mask-wearing and check vaccination status. Delivery and warehouse employees worried that they weren’t equipped properly with the right safety gear.

“We saw a tidal wave of activism during the first months of the pandemic,” said Jess Kutch, co-founder and co-executive director of Coworker.org, which assists workers in organizing efforts. The group saw more use of its website in a three-month period than all of its previous years combined. “That was a clear indication that far more people were wanting to speak out than previously.”

At the same time, the huge disruptions in buying patterns drove record profits at companies like Amazon and Google. The distance between leadership and rank and file widened as a result.

- Organizers are also taking advantage of the most supportive political environment they’ve seen in decades.

President Joe Biden vowed to be the “most pro-union president ever” and has been very vocal about his support for the PRO Act, which aims to make the unionization process easier and less bureaucratic.

The president met with 39 national labor leaders last Thursday, including the heads of Amazon Labor Union, and the union leader at Starbucks’ New York City Roastery.

- Contagious success

The media attention on employees organizing — successful or not — also fuels a domino effect, experts said. They don’t even need to be successful, said Kutch.

In Seattle, Starbucks organizer Sarah Pappin, 31, said that she’s been in contact with unionizing Verizon retail workers. “We’re seeing social justice combined with worker justice, and it’s not only catching fire but it’s getting results,” Pearce said. cnbc.com