Starbucks staff in New York have voted to establish a union, the first in any of the coffee chain’s stores since the 1980s. We look at how big labour is regaining power and popularity in America
After years in decline, big labour is regaining both power and popularity. Joe Biden, whose political career began in the union-friendly 1960s, has vowed to be the most pro-union president in history. Feeling newly empowered, workers have staged 241 big strikes this year, 58 of them in November alone. Unions are popping up in surprising places. Last month curators at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, who set one up last year, downed catalogues for a day.
These days the first-order answer to the Gompers question given by both the Biden administration and big labour is “more trade unions”—or, as the labour movement and its supporters put it, an increase in the “density” of union representation. Only then, the reasoning goes, will better pay, benefits and working conditions follow. The primary objective has been pursued vigorously.
This revival of organised labour could yet turn out to be a blip. Previous ones petered out; a series of strikes in 1945-46, accompanied by rising inflation, soured the public mood and led to the passage of the more restrictive legislation that remains in force to this day. Unionisation rates have been declining for decades across the West, not just in America. Still, companies are not taking any chances. They are pursuing two main strategies.
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