Hello, and welcome to Jacobin Radio.

I'm your guest host, Barry Eidlin, filling in this week for Susie Wiseman.

While the political terrain has gotten a lot more challenging for the left in recent years,

one notable bright spot has been Labor's resurgence.

Often led by a new multiracial generation of young people, workers have been organizing in the past few years on a scale not seen in decades.

This organizing uptick has been across the country, spanning many sectors of the economy.

Workers at Starbucks and Amazon have grabbed the headlines, but we have also seen workers in media,

healthcare, auto, retail, gaming, education, and so much more organizing to improve their lives at work.

In 2023 and 2024, according to National Labor Relations Board data,

roughly 100,000 workers per year unionized,

which is more than double the number seen in previous years.

And unlike what has been too often the case for labor in recent decades, workers are winning

important victories against big companies.

Just as I was recording this episode, we received word that workers at Bookseller Barnes

and Noble ratified a contract for three stores in New York City, which is a first for that

company.

And that follows Apple store workers negotiating first contracts last year in Maryland and

Oklahoma, along with Starbucks agreeing to a collective bargaining framework last year that

could soon result in a master agreement covering hundreds of store locations across the country.

A distinctive feature of this recent wave of organizing is its worker-led character. Unlike the

staff-heavy approach that has defined much of the union organizing of the past few decades,

in most of the cases we're seeing now, workers are taking the lead,

...