Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I'm the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs

Magazine. I am joined today by Jane McAlevy and Abby Lawler. Jane McLevy is a veteran

labor organizer who is currently a senior policy fellow at UC Berkeley's Labor Center.

Abby Lawler is also an organizer and a labor lawyer who's a legal fellow at the

Public Rights Project. Together, they are the authors of the new book Rules to Win by

Power and Participation in Union Negotiations. Thank you so much, Jane McAlevy,

Abby Lawler, for joining us on current affairs today. Great to be here. Thanks so much for having

us. I want to start by just reading you something that Vox published a few days ago.

A very pessimistic take of the American labor movement said every once in a while

reporters see a few successful unionization drives in the United States, like at Starbucks or Amazon,

and conclude the U.S. is in the midst of a labor union resurgence that unions are booming or

they are suddenly and rapidly rebounding. But we have to be honest about the situation.

Organized labor is not booming,

rebounding, or in a resurgence of any kind. Instead, it's in decline as it has been for many years.

Your new book focuses on the tactical, but before we get to the nitty-gritty, I want to dwell a little

bit on the big picture of where we are, the context for

all of this. Do you think that what I have just read you is an accurate assessment of the lay

of the land? I think no. I think the first part of what the person said is someone accurate.

You know, I mean, there are these moments when people think, okay, now it's coming back again.

And what we bump up against are the extraordinary power of the union busters in the United States in particular.

And what's interesting and different this time around speaking to that piece that you just read is that one thing encouraging right now is that there's a really, there's

explicit discussion about the rule of union busting in this country and the need to frankly

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