Why are so many young people joining labor unions?
Young workers are trading in their white shoes after Labor Day for protesting kicks.
Baristas at Starbucks and many other young workers are fighting for their rights to unionize.
Overall union membership is declining, but worker support for unions are up, and Gen Z and millennials are more pro-union than older generations were at their age.
Gen Z is even being called America’s most pro-union generation.
They feel collective bargaining will get them higher wages, benefits and more stability in an uncertain economy.
Jaz Brisack was 24 years old when she and several of her colleagues, all under age 30, first organized pro-union efforts at three Starbucks cafes in Buffalo, New York in 2021.
Two years later, over 300 Starbucks locations across the US have successfully unionized.
But Starbucks has worked aggressively to slow down the movement, firing hundreds of its pro-union workers and delaying contract agreements for its unionized locations.
Christian Smalls, a millennial, started a union movement at Amazon after he was fired in 2020 for leading a protest over working conditions during the pandemic.
Now Smalls is the president of the Amazon Labor Union after leading a group of former and current warehouse workers to establish a union last year - A first in Amazon’s 27-year history. But the union hasn’t been able to strike a deal on a contract yet.
These young workers have a supportive ally in President Biden, who stated his support for organized labor this past Labor Day.
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