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Labor

Our Biggest Labor Stories of 2022

Sluggish institutions, corporate mergers, billionaires behaving badly: It’s been a watershed year for the labor beat.

In These Times Editors

On September 05, 2022, Christian Smalls, President of the ALU, leads pro-union protestors on a march to the New York City homes of Starbucks’ interim CEO Howard Schultz and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos before holding a rally in Times Square. Photo by Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images

The past year has been one characterized by incredible solidarity, as Starbucks and Amazon workers challenged our conceptions of political possibility and galvanized a resurgent labor movement. It was also a year of taking power to task, from the fearless Warrior Met strike to the militance of worker-led, independent union drives at Amazon, Trader Joe’s, and Chipotle. Below, we’ve compiled our top labor stories from 2022.

These Are The Workers Who Took on Amazon, and Won
Against all odds, Amazon workers in New York organized a successful union against one of the biggest companies in the world. Here's how.
Luis Feliz Leon
How Unions Are Fighting to Protect Abortion Rights
From collective bargaining to creative use of release time, unions can defend the reproductive freedom of their members. Here's how some are doing it.
C.M. Lewis
How Amazon and Starbucks Workers Are Upending the Organizing Rules
Workers are leading. Unions should support them or get out of the way.
Chris Brooks
Independent Unions Are Great—And Proof of Labor's Broken Institutions
The inspiring wave of independent labor organizing also represents the failure of existing unions.
Hamilton Nolan
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Damning Report Shows Unions Have Plenty of Money to Organize—They Just Don't Spend It
For the past decade, organized labor has gotten richer even as it watched its membership decline.
Hamilton Nolan
500 Days Into the Warrior Met Coal Strike, Where Are Joe Biden and the Democrats?
As Alabama miners fight for their rights, Democratic leaders are largely absent.
The “Labor Shortage” Is Being Used as a Pretext to Harm Workers
Lawmakers and bosses are citing a supposed lack of workers as justification for a suite of reactionary policies aimed at further squeezing the working class.
Sarah Lazare
Elon Musk’s Takeover Through The Eyes of Twitter’s Janitors
Three weeks before the holidays, Twitter laid off its custodial staff. We spoke to them on what they saw at HQ.
Teddy Ostrow
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LGBT Workers Need Unions, Not Rainbow Capitalism
Major companies are weighing the benefits of pinkwashing as anti-LGBT extremism is on the rise. Doug Ireland's 1999 piece reminds us what organized labor can offer queer and trans workers.
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In an Apparent Rebuke, 14% of Chicago Democrats Voted Blank or Write-in for President
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Aaron Bushnell Will Be Venerated Like Rachel Corrie Was Before Him
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