Will Labor Unrest Get Worse Before It Gets Better?

The union wave at big U.S. retailers hasn’t yet resulted in first contracts for workers at Amazon, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, or REI, but recent strikes over the holiday period show the labor pressures aren’t letting up.

At Amazon, the Teamsters union claimed thousands of Amazon delivery drivers went on strike across several states over a five-day period from Dec. 19 until Christmas Eve at the peak of holiday delivery. Labor leaders said the strike achieved the goal of raising public awareness about the needs of drivers for contracts providing better pay and conditions.

“Make no mistake the Teamsters will never let up and workers will never stop fighting for their rights at Amazon,” a union representative said in a statement to CNN. “Stay tuned.”

Amazon insisted that its operations and deliveries were not affected by the strike. It has long maintained the drivers are contractors, not employees, and has refused to recognize the union.

“There are a lot of nuances here but I want to be clear, the Teamsters don’t represent any Amazon employees despite their claims to the contrary,” Kelly Nantel, a spokesperson for Amazon, told CNN. “This entire narrative is a PR play and the Teamsters’ conduct this past year, and this week, is illegal.”

Amazon continues to challenge the election outcome of a group of workers at a Staten Island warehouse that voted to unionize in 2022.

Meanwhile, at Starbucks, members of Starbucks Workers United staged their first strike in 13 months from Dec. 20 to Christmas Day over the coffee chain’s failed commitment to honor a framework to reach the first union contract at the company.

“This is backtracking on months and months of progress and promises from the company to work toward an end-of-year framework ratification,” said Michelle Eisen, a 14-year Buffalo Starbucks barista and bargaining delegate, in a statement. “We’re ready to do what it takes to show the company the consequences of not keeping their promises to baristas.”  

The union said the strike affected more than 300 locations nationwide, although Starbucks put the figure at 60 and indicated the impact was minimal.

“Workers United proposals call for an immediate increase in the minimum wage of hourly partners by 64%, and by 77% over the life of a three-year contract,” said Sara Kelly, Starbucks’ EVP and chief partner officer, in a statement. “These proposals are not sustainable, especially when the investments we continually make to our total benefits package are the hallmarks of what differentiates us as an employer.”

Among other retailers, workers at the first unionized Apple Store in the U.S. ratified a labor contract this past August after a year and a half in which bargaining stalled for long stretches and union campaigns at other stores fell short. Trader Joe’s and REI continue to fight with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over unionization efforts.

The union activity comes as the Labor Department reported that the union membership rate in the U.S. fell to an all-time low of 10% in 2023 from what had already been a record-low 10.1% in 2022. Union representation in the U.S. is half of the 20.1% rate in 1983 and peaked at 35% during the mid-1940s following the Great Depression and World War II.

“Workers want unions, but a broken system is undermining their efforts to organize at every turn,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), in a statement after the Labor Department released its findings. “Decades of efforts to block access to unions have taken a heavy toll on workers’ rights.”

Polls show Americans continue to have a favorable view of labor unions. The latest annual survey by Gallup found that in 2024, seven in 10 Americans approve of labor unions, near a 60-year high. The result is in line with a poll conducted by the AFL-CIO last year where seven in 10, or 71%, approved of labor unions — that included 91% of Democrats, 69% of independents, and 52% of Republicans. 

The union activity over the holiday selling season was seen as a step to get ahead of challenges unions may face against a returning Trump administration.

“The Trump NLRB the first time around was the most right-wing, anti-labor NLRB in the entire nearly 90-year history of the board,” William Gould, a former chairperson of the National Labor Relations Board during President Bill Clinton’s administration and a professor emeritus at Stanford University, told The Press Democrat.

“The unions want to make these disputes public and bring political pressures on the companies,” John Logan, director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, told the Toronto Star. “If these disputes drag on until next year, and if they are fought largely through the labor board and the courts, the unions and workers will almost certainly lose. This might be their last, best chance to pressure the companies in public before Trump comes into office.”