Last week’s union victory at a single Starbucks in Buffalo, N.Y., may seem small, but it has huge symbolic importance. It is the only one of Starbucks’ more than 8,900 company-owned cafés in the United States to unionize, but it probably won’t be the last.

Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at UC Santa Barbara, predicts that emboldened baristas at many more Starbucks across the U.S. — including perhaps in union-friendly cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco — could be inspired to rush to petition for union elections. The tiny acorn of a union victory in Buffalo could soon become a fast-growing oak in which workers across America’s service sector move toward union membership. And this, some labor experts, say, could help reverse organized labor’s decline to just 1 in 10 U.S. workers.

The conditions for a labor resurgence are better than they’ve been in decades, but it still won’t be easy. Joe Biden is the most pro-union president since Franklin Roosevelt and often goes out of his way to boost unions, most recently condemning Kellogg’s use of permanent replacement workers to defeat a two-month-long strike. According to a recent Gallup poll, 68% of Americans approve of unions — the highest level in more than 50 years — and 77% of Americans aged 18 to 34 approve of unions. That, of course, is the age group of Starbucks workers.

Many young Americans, plagued by student debt and high rents, are frustrated with the inequitable economic system and are eager for change,...

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