Starbucks Stops Opposing Its Baristas’ Union – American Prospect

“In a historic breakthrough, Starbucks and its workers announce they’ve come together.”

“After decades of decline, the American union movement has seen a dramatic uptick in the past couple of years, with a wave of unionizations among difficult-to-replace professional workers (university teaching assistants, hospital interns and residents); a landmark contract for unionized autoworkers; and rulings from President Biden’s National Labor Relations Board that enable workers to win back some of their organizing rights. But organizing and winning contracts for the kind of workers who can be replaced, whom managers have routinely fired when they seek to join or form unions, has still presented a nearly insuperable obstacle. And as a result, union density hasn’t really budged amid these victories.

“This is why Tuesday’s announcement is the single most important breakthrough American workers have achieved in a very long time. Until Tuesday, workers in industries such as fast-food or other parts of the service sector appeared to be all but unorganizable, so fierce and successful (and routine) was management’s opposition to such initiatives.”