Why labor unions are winning big right now

Organizers and labor experts say this moment is part of a larger trend of workers’ rights.

By Claire Hyman, Christian Elliott
Starbucks union
Starbucks employees and supporters react as votes are read during a viewing of their union election on Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021, in Buffalo, N.Y. Starbucks workers there voted to unionize over the company’s objections, pointing the way to a new labor model for the 50-year old coffee giant and highlighting a growing movement for labor organizing in the U.S. Associated Press
Starbucks union
Starbucks employees and supporters react as votes are read during a viewing of their union election on Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021, in Buffalo, N.Y. Starbucks workers there voted to unionize over the company’s objections, pointing the way to a new labor model for the 50-year old coffee giant and highlighting a growing movement for labor organizing in the U.S. Associated Press

Why labor unions are winning big right now

Organizers and labor experts say this moment is part of a larger trend of workers’ rights.

By Claire Hyman, Christian Elliott
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This week, two Illinois Starbucks coffee shops won union elections, Chicago Reader staff’s protesting forced one of the co-owners to step down, and University of Illinois Chicago graduate students bargained for higher wages.

Reset checks in with on-the-ground organizers and labor experts to see if the pandemic is giving workers more power.

GUESTS: Katie Prout, staff writer and union member of the Chicago Reader

Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel, audience engagement manager and union member of the Chicago Reader

Michael Mueller, shift lead at Starbucks in Cary, Ill.

Matt DeVilbiss, teaching assistant and organizing chair of University of Illinois Chicago’s graduate employees organization

Bob Bruno, director of the labor education program at the School for Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Peter Berg, director of the School of Human Resources and Labor Relations at Michigan State University