Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Thursday the 1st of September. I'm Nyla

Boudou. Here's what we're covering today. How a popular video game is handling real-life

political issues. Plus, Serena's last twirl. But first, a pivotal moment for Labour in

America. That's today's one big thing.

Labor Day is just around the corner and this year the low unemployment rate has shifted the

balance of power between workers and employers. That's laid the groundwork for recent union

formations at corporate giants like Starbucks and Amazon. In fact, unions haven't been this

popular in 50 years. Almost 71% of Americans now say they approve of unions. That's up almost

10% from pre-pandemic levels. In this week, the California Senate passed a bill that could

raise wages for fast food workers to as high as $22 per hour. That has the potential to revitalize

the way unions work in the US. Axios markets correspond it and sometimes Axios today guest host

Emily Peck has been reporting on all of this. Hey, Emily. Hey, Nyla. Emily, how did the pandemic

contribute, first of all, to not just this shift in the labour market, but this rise in support

for unions? Yeah, so I think we all know about this actually. If you take a moment to step back,

right? The pandemic hit so many people were thrown out of work and so many people weren't thrown

out of work. There are all these essential workers, fast food workers, yes, but all kinds of hourly

workers that we came in contact with every day of it. We saw working through the pandemic and

some really kind of horrific conditions. Everyone kind of felt this mistreatment or saw this mistreatment

or knew someone who was mistreated and then coming out of that period, there's a labour shortage.

Unemployment is really low and people feel empowered to get what they want from their bosses and

their managers. And I think this whole kind of swirl contributed to this increase in support

for unions. So in California, there's this movement towards something called sectoral bargaining,

...