New York Times | The U.S. Labor Movement Is Popular, Prominent and Also Shrinking
Posted in In the News News
KI Associate Director, Lane Windham, is quoted in The New York Times speaking on the present and future of the labor movement.
“I see what’s happening right now as part of that strike wave. Sort of that worker uprising that’s been going for a few years, but that has been definitely deepened by worker dissatisfaction during the pandemic.”
“I think that that’s people voting with their feet. That’s people who don’t have a union saying, ‘I am not doing this anymore. So they’re either leaving their jobs or refusing to take bad jobs.”
The high approval rating may be in part because of increased awareness of union activity thanks to media coverage of prominent organizing efforts. Much of the media coverage of recent union drives has focused on high-profile companies, Dr. Windham said.
“Many reporters tend to highlight organizing at companies that their readers are most likely to know — like Starbucks and Amazon — and have given less attention to smaller brands or companies, or to organizing among blue-collar work that is more behind the scenes, like in manufacturing. But, overall, there does seem to be a general uptick in reporting on labor and workers’ issues, especially in the pandemic, and it hasn’t all been limited to big names.”