Amazon, Starbucks workers push for unions after Covid upended labor

The Covid pandemic pushed Americans to reconsider how and where they work, resulting in a tight labor market, rising wages and what’s been dubbed the Great Resignation. It also spurred workers, many of them younger, at big companies such as Amazon and Starbucks to flex their newfound leverage with union movements.

Warehouse and store employees seeking union membership feel like they have no seat at the table. They’re looking for better pay and working conditions, and they want a say with management in day-to-day operations. 

“Employees are feeling powerless and this solidarity gives them some power,” said Catherine Creighton, director of Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations branch in Buffalo.

Emma Kate Harris, a 22-year-old retail sales specialist at the newly unionized REI Co-Op in Manhattan, has been with the company for three years, and she wants to see more understanding from her bosses.

“Our managers and higher management throughout the rest of the co-op don’t necessarily understand what it is to actually be on the floor for eight and a half hours a day for 32 or 40 hours a week,” said Harris. Workers at the recreation and camping goods store organized with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, or RWDSU. (REI told CNBC in a statement it is “committed to sitting down in good faith to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement.”)

Then again, this isn’t your grandparents’ organized labor push. Young workers like Harris taking part in union drives are driven by a desire to improve the workplace, even if they might not stick around to see the changes come to fruition like union laborers of the past did. Some have little to no experience with unions prior to getting involved in campaigns, but they recognize their power in the current labor environment.

“I think young people are breaking away from the expectation of previous generations that this is the way it is. And I think that my generation is starting to look more at the way it could be and the way it should be,” Harris said.

While it may seem like unions are surging again, however, the numbers tell a conflicting story about the state of organized labor in America. In 2021, the union membership rate for government and private sector employees fell to 10.3% from 10.8% in 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Private sector union membership fell slightly in 2021 to 6.1% from 6.2% the prior year.

But at the same time, American approval ratings of unions are near an all-time high. Gallup polling from September 2021 shows 68% of Americans approve of labor unions — the highest reading since a 71% approval rating in 1965. They’re particularly popular among the younger members of the workforce. Adults ages 18 to 34 approve of unions at a rate of 77%.

Richard Bensinger, union…