A rising unionization push among hourly-wage workers at some of the most iconic companies of this era could become “the most significant moment in the American labor movement” in decades, labor experts say.
Retailers Walmart Inc. WMT, -1.87% and Target Inc. TGT, -2.61% thwarted unionization efforts as they grew into corporate giants in the 1980s and 1990s, but today’s fast-growing companies are facing a substantial push. Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -2.66% had been successful in staving off unions until earlier this month, when workers at its warehouse in New York City’s Staten Island voted to unionize; workers at more than two dozen Starbucks Inc. SBUX, -1.32% stores have done the same in recent months; and a unionization effort has begun to spread at Apple Inc.’s AAPL, -2.77% retail stores as well as other large employers such as REI.
Though labor historians say the push is in its early days, Erik Loomis also said it could be as important to the labor movement as the Service Employees International Union’s organization of janitors in the 1990s and 2000s, and could take on additional significance because of the companies involved.
Organizing the “iconic companies of the new economy… is like organizing Ford F, -3.63% and GM GM, -2.09%...
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