Two of the most exciting union organizing efforts that the United States has seen in decades -- Starbucks Workers United and the Amazon Labor Union -- have issued a joint statement "calling on our communities, friends, allies, neighbors — the whole working class — to join together in solidarity this May Day 2022 and mobilize against the union busting of Starbucks, Amazon, and every other company engaged in repressing its workers."
As we have reported on on The Left Chapter, since two Buffalo Starbucks locations voted to unionize in December, a genuine wave of Starbucks unionization efforts has spread across the entire US.
At this point at least 17 Starbucks outlets have had successful union votes and over 200 have indicated their intention to try to unionize.
Recently this included 4 Starbucks stores voting unanimously to unionize over a three day period.
Meanwhile, in a huge win for Amazon workers in the United States workers at Amazon’s massive warehouse on Staten Island, New York voted by a large margin to join the Amazon Labor Union in results released April 1.
Since then employees "at more than 100 U.S.-based Amazon (AMZN) facilities have contacted Amazon Labor Union (ALU) President Chris Smalls about unionizing their workplaces".
A remarkable turn of events.
Both Amazon and Starbucks are, of course, pushing back very hard trying to prevent the dam from bursting.
This includes tactics like firing pro-union workers in the case of Starbucks and shenanigans like these on the part of Amazon:
Now both the union movements have united to call for solidarity with workers trying to unionize the two corporate giants and for workers and their supporters to unite around this and against union busting on International Workers' Day and beyond.
"From Buffalo to Memphis, to Staten Island and Bessemer, Seattle, Mesa, and everywhere else, we remain persistent and determined to continue to fight for a better workplace and a better world."