Factbox-US Union Recently Wins Amazon, Starbucks and More According to Reuters

By Hilary Russ

(Reuters) – The COVID-19 pandemic, labor shortages, the Black Lives Matter movement and other social and economic forces have contributed to the ascent of high-profile trade unions across the United States, including Friday’s win at Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ Warehouse:) in New York City.

Among wage earners in the United States last year, 10.3% were unionized – half the rate in 1983 – and union membership in the private sector includes Amazon and Starbucks Corp (NASDAQ:) was only 6.1% last year. There were 149 union elections in January and February this year, compared with 103 elections in the same two months last year.

Here are some notable recent union victories.

AMAZON

Workers at an Amazon.com facility in New York City’s Staten Island on Friday voted in favor of forming a union, making it the online retailer’s first facility in the United States. The period is organized.

The victory of a new, independent union at America’s No. 2 privately held company adds to the recent successes of labor activists pushing into new industries. Not all rounds of labor were successful, including preliminary results of the ballot counting at Amazon warehouse workers in Alabama.

STAR

In recent months, employees at 10 Starbucks U.S. locations have voted to join Worker’s Company, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. The cafes include five in Buffalo, New York; two in Mesa, Arizona; one by one in Seattle and Knoxville, Tennessee; and a Starbucks Reserve Roastery in New York City.

At least 170 others had petitioned for the election as of Friday. The counting of votes is scheduled for more than a dozen other cafes over the next few weeks.

Starbucks beat the union in a Buffalo store.

NEW YORK TIME TIME

About 600 designers, software engineers, data analysts and other tech workers at the New York Times voted in March to join the NewsGuild of New York, which has won several elections. other in the past two years.

The March results created the largest union of tech workers in the United States with bargaining power. NewsGuild also represents Reuters’ US journalists.

GOOGLE FIBER

Contractors for high-speed internet provider Google Fiber, part of Alphabet (NASDAQ:) Inc, in Kansas City, Missouri last week voted to merge. While only 10 workers participated, it was the first group of the Alphabet worker Union (AWU) with bargaining power.

AWU says it has 800 members since its debut just over a year ago, but those members do not have collective bargaining power.

INDUSTRY CANNABIS

In June, United Food and Commercial workers reached an agreement with cannabis lab Sonoma Lab Works and cannabis producer CannaCraft Manufacturing to unite their workers in California.

As the number of cannabis growers and clinics grew, so did industry unions. UFCW says it is currently the largest union of cannabis workers in the United States with more than 10,000 members.

SILICON VALLEY

In 2020, employees of crowdfunding platform Kickstarter voted to join a coalition, the first major tech company to do so. Workers at location data startup Mapbox in August lost the ability to form unions.