From WNYC Studios.

I'm Brian Lerer.

This is my daily politics podcast.

It's Tuesday, April 23rd.

Brian Lairer on WNYC, since 2021, thousands of workers at companies like Amazon, Starbucks, and Apple have won union

representation elections. That year, public support for labor swell. The Gallup poll showed

that 71 percent of respondents approved of labor unions the highest level since 1959. Some

victories were hard fought, and some are still moving on to the equally hard

step of contract negotiations. Others like a Starbucks challenge to the National Labor Relations

Board's reinstatement of fired baristas are going before the Supreme Court for a hearing today.

And yet the momentum has been building.

Just last Friday, the United Auto Workers unionized at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee.

It was the first time workers at a foreign-owned auto plant in the South have unionized.

It was the world's only non-union VW plant, according to the Guardian, or it is now. But a lot is at stake for the National

Labor Relations Board in the upcoming elections. Board members are appointed by the president

for five-year terms. One of the nation's preeminent labor organizers and scholars, Jane McAlevy,

has been on the forefront of some of these fights, participating on the picket lines,

as well as writing several books, basically how-to manuals for how to help unions win the vote

and win their bargaining agreements.

Amazon warehouse workers and Los Angeles teachers have followed her approach, as well as

people like Naomi Klein, the leading climate activist who told the New Yorker that Jane's, quote,

focus on winning helped the movement to reframe the climate crisis as a power struggle.

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