Why Unions Matter Library

The Library is organized into the following sections:

Section 1: Worker Organizing Efforts
Section 2: Labor and the Climate Crisis
Section 3: Anti-worker Threats and Actions
Section 4: Labor Law and Worker Rights
Section 5: The Union Difference
Section 6: Worker Centers, Wage Boards, and Sectoral Bargaining
Section 7: Public Sector Unionization
Section 8: The Right to Work Experience
Section 9: Anti-union Arguments

Section 1: Worker Organizing Efforts

Harold Meyerson, “In Massachusetts Today, Uber and Lyft Drivers Went Union, Under a recently enacted state law, independent contractors can bargain collectively—and now, they will.” The American Prospect, May 26, 2026.

Meegan Dugan Adell and Morgan Polk, “Gig Workers Need a Solid Floor and Portable Benefits,” Jacobin, April 28, 2026.

Maria Esch, “Three Promising Innovations in Worker Organizing Beyond the NLRB,” Inequality.org, April 22, 2026.

Eric Dirnbach “Workers Can Organize Outside the NLRB,” Jacobin, March 12, 2026.

Daniel Denvir, “Interview with Emilia González Avalos, Greg Nammacher, JaNaé Bates Imari, The Minneapolis Strategy for Fighting ICE Is Worth Studying,” Jacobin, February 4, 2026.

Carlo Fanelli, “The Return of the Wildcat Strike?,” The Bullet, September 3, 2025.

Hamilton Nolan, “Three Crises of Labor,” How Things Work, August 20, 2025.

Hadas Their, “A Spark of Hope From Scrappy Federal Workers,” Portside, July 25, 2025.

Stephen Lerner, “For Labor, Caution Is Fatal,” In These Times, March 20, 2025.

Jonathan Tasini, “A Sad, But Very Typical, Anniversary, A reason a General Strike is long overdue,” Working Life Newsletter, May 16, 2025.

An interview with Mark Dudzic, Carl Rosen, Jenny Brown, and Howard Botwinick, “Learning from the 1990s Labor Party,” Jacobin, May 1, 2025.

Stephen Lerner, “For Labor, Caution Is Fatal, The riskiest course is to stay the course,” In These Times, March 24, 2025.

Steve Fraser and Nelson Lichtenstein, “The Left Needs Its ‘Schools of Enlightenment and Revolution’,” Jacobin, February 5, 2025.

Section 2: Labor and the Climate Crisis

Lukas Ferrari and Julia Kaiser, “Insorgiamo: A Factory Occupation for the Climate,” The Bullet, December 28, 2025.

Vinnie Collins, “Labor’s Climate Fight Requires Public Ownership,” Jacobin, November 9, 2025.

Caroline Preston, “Teachers Unions Leverage Contracts To Fight Climate Change,” Grist, November 2, 2025.

Paul Prescod, “New England Unions Lead the Way on Offshore Wind,” Jacobin, October 11, 2025.

Kari Thompson, “Locomotive Builders Forge Green Rail Project”, Labor Notes, May 8, 2025.

Pradnya Garud, “The Common Ground Between Labor and Climate Justice Is the Key to a Livable Future,”  EHN, January 6, 2025.

Section 3: Anti-worker Threats and Actions 

Margaret Poydock, Teke Wiggin (LaborLab), and Celine McNicholas, “U.S. employers spend more than $1.5 billion annually on union avoidance,” Economic Policy Institute report, May 20, 2026.

Hamilton Nolan, “An Existential Threat to Organized Labor’s Ability to Help People, We are not afraid enough of AI’s pernicious dynamic,” How Things Work, March 12, 2026.

Luis Feliz Leon, “Amazon’s Robot Revolution,” Dissent Magazine, January 12, 2026.

Michael Felsen and M. Patricia Smith, “Labor Change Will Hurt Workers, Spare Violators,” The Progressive, July 17, 2025.

Miriam Li, “Wall Street’s Dangerous Grind: the Human Toll of High Finance and the Fight for Workplace Reform,” On Labor, March 12, 2025.

Steven Greenhouse, “Trump vowed to champion US workers – the reality has been a relentless assault,” The Guardian, February 16, 2025.

Orin Starn, “Inside Amazon’s Union-Busting Tactics, An anthropologist reports on the impediments to labor organizing—and why it’s still worth trying,” Sapiens.org, August 29, 2024.

Juliana Broad, “The Right Has a New Playbook to Crush Unions and Enshrine Corporate Power,” In These Times, April 3, 2024.

Hamilton Nolan, “Radical Capital, The unholy alliance of Jesus and Ayn Rand,” How Things Work, February 21, 2024.

Section 4: Labor Law and Worker Rights

Keyian Vafai, “Employers Stall Labor Contracts for Years. A New Bill Could Change That,” The American Prospect, July 30, 2026.

Andrew Strom, “The National Labor Relations Act Suffers Another Blow,” On Labor, May 28, 2026.

Kathy Lara, “Oregon Workers Want Unions, But Obstacles Stand in the Way,” Oregon Center for Public Policy, April 30, 2026.

Otto Barenberg, “If the Government Can’t Ban Captive Audience Meetings, it Can’t Ban Pickets, Either,” OnLabor, December 29, 2025.

David Doorey, “How Three Simple Labor Laws Helped Unions Organize Amazon and UBER in Canada,” OnLabor, August 5, 2025.

Harold Meyerson, “Trump Makes His Move at the NLRB,” The American Prospect, July 22, 2025.

Benjamin Sachs, “Going, Garmon, Gone: Why States May Now Be Free to Redesign Labor Law,” On Labor, June 4, 2025.

Lauren McFerran and Lynn Rhinehart, “A Coalition of Hundreds of Employers Is Asking the Trump Administration To Override the NLRB and Dictate Labor Law,” Economic Policy Institute Blog, April 15, 2025.

Steven Greenhouse, “Most Americans have no idea how anti-worker the US supreme court has become,” The Guardian, June 28, 2024.

Section 5: The Union Difference

James Araby, “Workplace Democracy Is Essential to Defending Democracy,” The Stansbury Forum, July 19, 2026.

Heidi Shierholz, Celine McNicholas, Josh Bivens, Jennifer Sherer, Ben Zipperer, and Margaret Poydock, “The case for tripling union membership, How rebuilding union power would strengthen workers, the economy, and our democracy,” Economic Policy Institute report, July 15, 2026.

Margaret Poydock and Celine McNicholas, “Strong unions, stronger communities and democracy,” Economic Policy Institute, January 22, 2026.

Samia Islam and Kelly Chen, “Declining union membership could be making working-class Americans less happy and more susceptible to drug overdoses,” The Conversation, November 4, 2025.

Celine McNicholas, Margaret Poydock, Heidi Shierholz, and Hilary Wething, “Unions aren’t just good for workers—they also benefit communities and democracy,” Economic Policy Institute, August 20, 2025.

Aaron Sojourner and Adam Reich, “Americans favor labor unions over big business now more than ever,” Economic Policy Institute, May 20, 2025.

Joanna Wuest, “The Best Way To Secure LGBTQ Rights: Unions,” Jacobin, June 9, 2024.

Section 6: Worker Centers, Wage Boards, and Sectoral Bargaining

Jennifer Sherer and Celine McNicholas “Sectoral bargaining FAQ: Collective bargaining, sectoral wage and standards boards, and worker power,” Economic Policy Institute report, July 14, 2026.

Sharon Block, “Building Worker Power in a Precarious Federal Landscape: Sectoral Strategies and Worker Democracy,” OnLabor, December 22. 2025.

Sharon Block and Seema Nanda, “Reviving Worker Power through Sectoral Bargaining,” OnLabor, September 1, 2025.

Nigel Jaquiss, “The State’s Largest Union Wants to Assist Caregivers—and Grow Its Own Ranks,” Willamette Week, March 5, 2025.

Jeanne Kuang, “California’s fast food council after one year: A few meetings, three staff members hired,” Cal Matters, March 3, 2025.

Rogé Karma, “The California Job-Killer That Wasn’t,” The Atlantic, December 22, 2024.

Sarah Lazare, “Minnesota Labor Is Reviving a Progressive-Era Tool to Improve Working Conditions, Workers are fighting for a Labor Standards Board to address conditions across industries,” Workday Magazine, October 21, 2024.

Kathy Lara, “Workforce standards boards can raise the tide for all workers,” Oregon Center for Public Policy, September 4, 2024.

David Madland, “Sectoral Bargaining Can Support High Union Membership,” On Labor, June 6, 2024.

Steven Greenhouse, “Embracing and Resisting: The Variable Relationships Between Worker Centers and Unions,” The American Prospect, April 22, 2021.

Matthew Cunnington-Cook, “Black Worker Centers: Building Workplace Power in the Communities,” The American Prospect, April 20, 2021.

Section 7: Public Sector Unionization

Jesse Scheckner, “Despite Gov. DeSantis’ Union Crackdowns, AFSCME Florida Keeps Winning,” Portside, July 1, 2026.

Sarah Lazare, “What It Means When Federal Union Contracts Disappear,” The American Prospect, September 3, 2025.

Jenny Brown, “Federal Workers Declare Five-Alarm Fires at Agencies,” Labor Notes, September 26, 2025.

Michael Sainato, “‘Like Working in a Prison’: Cuts, Fear and Understaffing at Trump’s Labor Department,” Guardian, September 16, 2025.

Sarah Lazare, “What It Means When Federal Union Contracts Disappear,” The American Prospect, September 3, 2025.

Kari Lydersen, “Against Trump, For the Common Good: What Chicago Teachers Won in Their Latest Contract,” In These Times, April 18, 2025.

Therese Bordeaux, “Senators Introduce Bill To Ban Federal Labor Unions,” Governing, March 17, 2025.

Sarah Jaffe, “The Movement Supporting Public Employees Is Rising,” In These Times, February 24, 2025.

Sam Brodey, “Federal Workers’ Unions See DOGE-Inspired Surge,” Boston Globe, February 8, 2025.

Section 8: The Right to Work Experience

Michael Sainato, ”US Union Membership Declining in ‘Right-To-Work’ States, Report Reveals,” Guardian, September 8, 2025.

Chandra Childers, “Breaking down the South’s economic underperformance, Racism and Economic Exploitation,” Economic Policy Institute, June 11, 2024.

Andrew Strom, “Aren’t We Supposed to Have One National Labor Policy?,” On Labor, June 3, 2024.

Daryl Newman, “Remembering the Racist History of ‘Right-To-Work’ Laws,” The Grio, February 26, 2024.

Craig Mauger, “Michigan Senate Approves Repeal of Right-To-Work Law, Return of Prevailing Wage,” Detroit News, March 15, 2023.

Rachel M. Cohen, “Two states, two visions for the future of labor: Right to work is on the ballot,” Vox, September 29, 2022.

Section 9: Anti-union Arguments 

Laura Li, “Eat the Rich or Save the Economy? The Media Battle Over the UAW’s Historic Strike,” Power at Work, September 12, 2025.

Jessica Burbank, “The Minimum Wage Claims You Keep Hearing Are Totally Fake. We Can Prove It,” Drop Site, December 31, 2024.

Lee Harris, “Econ Commentators Join TSMC to Declare U.S. Workers’ Premature Defeat,” The American Prospect, August 2023.

Grover Norquist, “Biden’s PRO Act is a covert tax hike on 7.7 million Americans,” The Hill, April 27, 2022.

Jack Stine, “You want a union? Start your own business,” KIRO news radio, March 23, 2022.

Sean Higgins, “Pro Act Limits Workers Rights,” The Hill, September 6, 2021.

Daniel DiSalvo, “Not Public-Spirited, Government-employee unions—including those for police—put the power and interests of their workers above the public interest,” City Journal, June 8, 2020.

Richard A. Epstein, “The Decline Of Unions Is Good News,” Defining Ideas, Hoover Institution, January 27, 2020.

Elizabeth Hovde, “The union way – penalizing community-minded employers,” Oregonian, May 28, 2018.

Steve Buckstein and Kathryn Hickok, “My View: Time to stop forcing union membership,” Portland Tribune, August 24, 2017.

Oregonian Editorial Board, “Oregon ‘right to work’ initiative is suddenly very relevant: Editorial Agenda 2016,” The Oregonian, April 1, 2016.