A small but motivated segment of the U.S. workforce is sounding the call for unionization, despite concerns of a recession and aggressive counter-offensives from employers. The workers seek better pay and protections. Many feel spurred by pandemic exhaustion, and by a personal sense of economic and social injustice. For employers, including Apple, Amazon.com and Starbucks, the movement adds yet another new element to an already challenging labor landscape.
In Buena Park, Calif., the knights, queens and other actors at the Medieval Times castle are among the small but growing share of those seeking union membership. Weary after months of short staffing, they push themselves to perform horseback sword fights, stunt-falls and falconry before sometimes rowdy audiences.
In Manhattan, Tyler Mulholland, a clothing sales lead at outdoor-gear chain REI, said a sudden furlough in 2020, along with inconsistent company Covid masking and distancing guidelines, prompted his store to unionize in March.
In Lakewood, Calif., the roots go back further for Tyler Keeling, a Starbucks barista trainer. Keeling says he grew up poor in a desert town plagued by drugs. He felt energized by both a passion for his job and the history of labor movements. Keeling bounced between Starbucks in Washington and New Jersey before helping lead a successful unionization drive at his store in May.
"That was one of the most impactful moments in my life," said Keeling, 26. "I look back on that day so fondly. I think I cried for about two hours after our vote count happened."
Rising Unionization
Other unlikely union victories have dotted the retail and tech landscape in recent months as tight labor markets give workers the negotiating power to unionize. Short-staffed companies spreading their workforces thin also amp up the incentive to form unions.
Unions have wedged their way into Amazon, Starbucks, Apple and elsewhere. But despite a labor-friendly administration and decades-high public support for unions, the next stage of the process promises a far more difficult fight.
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New labor unions seeking contracts likely face years of delay tactics from employers. Meanwhile, automation and outsourcing loom. And high turnover in the industries where the employees work could dilute resolve.
Thus far, workers and organizers say fluctuations in the economy haven't dampened enthusiasm for unionization. Wall Street analysts have downplayed the impacts while still bracing for a hit to profits. However, some analysts concede that failing to negotiate would damage some companies' progressive images.
Labor Union Membership And The Economy
Conventional economic thinking indicates that workers are more likely to form unions when the economy is good and prices are high. But recently, the economy has thrown mixed signals.
Gross domestic product has shrunk for two straight quarters. Yet a strong July jobs report put unemployment at 50-year lows. Inflation has begun cooling from 40-year highs, and economists project further easing ahead.
But many workers have lived through at least two economic implosions. They've shouldered the impacts of Wall Street needling companies to optimize workflows and technological advancements that made it easier for companies to cycle through employees and keep wages low, according to Nelson Lichtenstein, a history professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The sense that they'll be worse off than older generations is strong, as rising prices — for rent, groceries and health care — outpace whatever they make at their jobs.
A turn south in the economy, some suggest, would make labor unions more appealing.
"I was a teenager in 2008," said Mulholland, 32, who has worked at REI for four years. "I've been a student, I've worked in schools. I've worked in production. I work in service now. I mean, it doesn't really feel like the economy ever really truly bounced back from the recession that happened when I was a teenager."
Amazon Union Vote And Others
Union interest has soared through much of the past year. Union representation petitions jumped 58%, to 1,892 from Oct. 1 to June 30, or vs. the first nine months of the government's prior fiscal year, the National Labor Relations Board said in July.
By May 25, the board said, unionization petitions logged over that period surpassed the total for the entire 2021 fiscal year. Unfair labor practice charges, it said, climbed 16%.
Some of those labor unions, over those nine months and beyond, have formed within household names. In one Amazon union vote, a Staten Island warehouse, known as JFK8, voted to form a union in April following a high-profile campaign led by two friends, Christian Smalls and Derrick Palmer. Amazon is challenging that union vote.
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Elsewhere, a Starbucks union vote last year for workers in Buffalo, N.Y., to join the Workers United union touched off dozens more votes in other states.
Alphabet's Google and a segment of Activision-Blizzard — which is being acquired by Microsoft — have unions. Employees at an Apple store in Towson, Md., voted to join one in June. A Medieval Times castle in Lyndhurst, N.J., also voted to unionize in July. So did a Trader Joe's grocery store in Hadley, Mass.
Still, union representation in the total U.S. workforce isn't what it used to be. The share of union workers in the nation last year stood at around 10%, according to the Labor Department. In 1983, unions represented about 20% of the workforce, down from a peak of around 35% in 1954, according to Congressional Research Service data cited by Pew Research.
How Americans View Union Membership
Recent polling has signaled greater support for organized labor. A Gallup poll from September found that 68% of Americans approved of labor unions. That's the highest level since 1965.
Elsewhere, a Pew Research Survey conducted in January also found that most U.S. adults believed the decadeslong decrease in union membership "has been somewhat or very bad for the country." A separate Pew survey conducted last year found that 69% of people ages 18-29 felt unions had a positive impact on the U.S.
Labor experts say several factors define the current unionization movement. The workers who unionize now are likelier than in past decades to have a college education. For many, remote work through the pandemic wasn't an option. They were deemed "essential" during the Covid onslaught, but watched their hazard pay disappear while their employers' profits, in some cases, skyrocketed. Many have spent the last year dealing with understaffing stress and tantrums from customers.
Lichtenstein notes that the labor movement and social-justice movement had gone separate ways in the past several decades. Now, they're once again converging, he says. Newer union members are drawing inspiration from movements like Black Lives Matter and MeToo.
"I think what's happened today, certainly for the strata of workers who are in motion today, for the typical Starbucks barista, is that distinction (between labor and social justice) has collapsed," he said.
More Reasons To Unionize?
Lichtenstein also points to longer-term changes in how the retail and service industry manages its underlings. In decades past, he says, high turnover was a liability. Better benefits, from pensions to health insurance, were tools used to shore up employee loyalty.
But the rise of new technology, be it a bar code scanner or a latte-making machine, made it easier for those industries to train new recruits. Cycling through employees, therefore, became the cheaper option, he says.
More turnover, he explains, keeps wages lower, since employees tend to expect higher pay the longer they stick around. Rather than lay off staff and pay unemployment insurance, he says, retailers are more likely now to cut hours or otherwise create circumstances that pressure employees toward quitting instead.
Amazon's warehouses have sharpened technology-driven turnover into a science, according to researchers and organizers. A former Amazon vice president told the New York Times that former CEO Jeff Bezos once said having an established, deeply rooted workforce was "a march to mediocrity." Annual turnover rates at Amazon warehouses can run as high as 150%, a Times analysis found.
Unionization And The 'Burnout' Model
Employees might leave those jobs for any number of reasons. But the Times reported that Amazon's automated worker-management system interfered with benefits and led to accidental firings. And some pickers and packers hustling customer orders out the door say the company's speed-focused metrics have led to more workplace injuries.
"Amazon's model operates off burnout," said Adam Obernauer, a director at the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which is helping with efforts to organize an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala.
He said workers there have complained of effectively working for an algorithm that's always pressuring them to clear more boxes. They describe "time off task" measurements that pit them against rigid time limits that measure how long they log off their work devices to, say, speak with a co-worker or use the bathroom.
The National Labor Relations Board is reviewing allegations that the e-commerce giant interfered with a unionization vote that went against the union push at the warehouse earlier this year — including accusations of a firing and suspensions of union supporters. An Amazon union vote failed there last year. But the NLRB granted a new one, following similar objections.
Last year, Amazon management said it softened its time-off-task metrics. And it has said performance-related firings are uncommon. Both Amazon and Starbucks argue that they offer some of the best pay and benefits in their respective industries, including assistance with maternity leave and college tuition.
But even Amazon said it faces risks if its pace of employee churn held steady. Its own internal research, Vox reported, said if "we continue business as usual, Amazon will deplete the available labor supply in the U.S. network by 2024." Amazon did not respond to emailed questions.
Unionization Backers: 'We Can Do This'
Staffing shortfalls have been acute elsewhere, employees say. Jake Bowman, a Medieval Times knight in Buena Park, says understaffing issues plagued the castle as it emerged from Covid lockdown. He and other knights found themselves painting, cleaning horse stalls or replacing the performance arena sand. Those duties, he says, cut into time training knights with less experience.
"Especially now that we're understaffed, training is vital," said Bowman, 33. "Because you're going to have guys do more shows than they should be doing, basically before they're ready."
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Bowman, who makes $18.50 an hour, says he received workers comp while recovering from an injury after a horse kicked him in the lower back at a castle in Dallas roughly nine years ago that left him unable to walk for months. More recently, he broke his thumb after missing blocking a sword correctly. Older knights, he said, have dealt with back pain, knee pain, along with shoulder and wrist surgeries.
But he and Erin Zapcic, who plays a queen at the Buena Park castle, call out other issues: A clinic that Bowman says is unreliable in diagnosing injuries, high turnover among low-paid stable hands, and riding and caring for horses whose moods can vary.
Zapcic, 39, says she hopes negotiating higher pay and firmer job-title definitions might attract and protect more staff. She says that after the castle in Lyndhurst, N.J., voted to join the American Guild of Variety Artists, she collected signatures announcing the intent to unionize within five days. Buena Park's vote on whether to join AGVA is still ahead.
"Once we saw New Jersey take the lead, it became this watershed moment," said Zapcic. "Like, 'Oh. We can do this.'"
Labor Unions Calling Shots, For Now?
Wall Street expects the unionization efforts to take at least some bite out of profits. But analysts also suggest that companies have lots of options to guard the bottom line.
"Companies will have to increase benefits to retain current workers and attract new workers," Jefferies analysts said in a November research note, which focused on the impact of labor unions and the Great Resignation. "With rising wages, we may start to see less pushback from domestic labor."
"In the longer-term, companies may err toward automation and/or shifting production outside the U.S.," they said.
Research has offered mixed conclusions about the impact of unions on companies and their investors. A study published last year in the Journal of Corporate Finance found that unions "limit risk-taking" and "constrain overinvestment." But it also noted research spanning decades that, alternately, found labor unions improved worker morale, pay and productivity or hindered productivity and kept businesses from operating nimbly.
Elsewhere, a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research published in 2009 indicated that union victories at public companies led to "large negative returns of 10% to 14%," according to a summary of the research.
Stock declines, it said, lasted for around 15 months after a win. But that research, which tallied data from 1961 to 1999, found that actual profit "appears unaffected by unionization."
Still, as CNBC reported in April, Morgan Stanley analysts estimated that "every 1% of Amazon's front-line workforce that unionize would lead to an incremental $150 million" in yearly operating costs. The firm said it didn't expect "a rapid trend" toward the formation of more labor unions. Amazon's net income last year clocked in at $33.4 billion, a 56% jump from 2020. That is expected to drop to $2.1 billion in 2022, before rebounding to $25.5 billion a year later.
Impacts Of Starbucks Union Vote
Amid the Starbucks union votes, management and labor dispute which path is best for workers. As unionization efforts escalated in Buffalo and workers remained scarce, Starbucks in October said a pay raise to an average of around $17 per hour would kick in this summer. And it has said it would plow $1 billion this year into pay raises, training and equipment. During an earnings call in May, CEO Howard Schultz said that this September the company would unveil other employee incentives. Those include help with student-loan refinancing and new profit-sharing initiatives.
But except for the October raise, none of the other benefits would go to employees who are in a union or trying to form one. Schultz, during the call, said federal law prohibited the company from "promising new wages and benefits at stores involved in union organizing."
"Compare any union contract in our sector to the constantly expanding list of wages and benefits we have provided our people for decades, and the union contract will not even come close to what Starbucks offers," he said.
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The Workers United union filed a complaint with the NLRB, according to NPR, calling Schultz's interpretation of the law "dead wrong."
Starbucks organizers on Twitter claimed credit for pressuring the company to offer those plumped-up benefits. The union, however, says that only three Starbucks stores have had their first bargaining session.
The labor board, meanwhile, has also accused Starbucks of unlawfully firing employees for unionizing. Starbucks this month asked the board to suspend mail-ballot union elections nationwide, alleging improper collaboration between the board and the union.
In April, BTIG analyst Peter Saleh said turnover within the restaurant industry ran at more than 150%. Based on conversations with consultants who have negotiated labor contracts, he said he believed "it is possible that Starbucks Workers United negotiates or accepts a materially subpar contract to essentially secure a union shop designation at Starbucks."
The union would then push for a better contract later, he said.
Union Membership Resistance Tactics
Employers work with a deep playbook of union-squashing tactics. Besides floating better benefits toward nonunion employees, companies have also badgered workers looking to organize, according multiple experts and employees.
Company higher-ups typically turn lower-ranking managers into the front lines for anti-union efforts, regardless of their opinions toward labor unions, Lichtenstein says. Employees have described visits from out-of-town managers, mandatory meetings or one-on-one conversations — all intended to steer them from seeking unionization.
Labor Laws, Winning Ingredients
Labor experts say it's illegal for a business to tell an employee they'll lose their job or benefits if they join a union, or threaten to shut down their workplace. But executives and managers, with the help of lawyers, can craft anti-union messaging that stops just short of legal limits.
Even if a company says something that runs afoul of labor law, it's effectively in the clear if it tells employees it won't do so again. Unlawful firings can be remedied by reinstatement, back pay and interest.
Then there are questions surrounding the unique concoction required to win union victories at all.
At the core of the narrative pushed by employers hoping to quash union membership efforts is the idea that labor unions are "third-party" interlopers. Some have attributed JFK8's success to the campaign's grassroots nature and its ability to tap into the concerns unique to workers at that warehouse, without the aid of a bigger organization.
But the Amazon Labor Union, born out of the Amazon union vote victory at JFK8, failed to land a union win at a second warehouse in Staten Island, despite support from Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The Limits Of Unionization Impact
And once negotiations for a contract begin, nothing forces a company to sign a collective bargaining agreement. Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard, told the Harvard Gazette this year that in "maybe 25% to 30% of the cases where unions win elections, they never get a first contract."
Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at Cornell University, says the U.S. labor-relations system came out of the 1930s. Since then, she adds, the U.S. economy has become globally connected. Single companies, like Amazon, now set standards across entire industries.
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But the same is not true for labor. In the U.S., winning unionization at one workplace generally doesn't mean that facility gets to negotiate labor standards across a region, company or industry. Those negotiations will likely have to happen location by location.
"Our model of labor relations doesn't fit our economy," she said. "That is a fundamental transformation that we need to address on a policy level and we are not there yet."
Unionization Motivation
Still, even as that economy fluctuates, Ileen DeVault, a professor of labor history at Cornell University, notes that it was during the Great Depression when unionization occurred in the country's mass-production industries.
"If wages start going down, if other places begin to close or cut back their workforces, I think workers are going to be very upset at this point," she said. "That may, in fact, lead them to continue to push for unions in their workplaces."
Bowman, at Medieval Times, says some co-workers are trying to get second jobs to support their families amid rising costs.
At Starbucks, though, Keeling says many workers are too busy to think about the state of the economy.
Keeling says he wakes up at 3 a.m. some days for work. He juggles those hours with school, where he's studying software engineering. Starbucks is helping pay tuition. But he says he can barely afford the textbooks.
"Most partners (at Starbucks) don't even have the time of day to think about the oncoming recession," Keeling said. He added: "We're out here working two jobs, three jobs, for a lot of people."
