How Do Workers Win? (w/ Eric Blanc)

This episode originally aired on February 10, 2025. Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs!

Eric Blanc is the author of We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big, which covers the recent wave of unionization drives in America and summarizes the lessons we can learn from them. Eric shows that today's new unions have succeeded against incredible odds through bottom-up organizing: the workers themselves decide to organize a union, rather than existing large unions launching campaigns. Eric argues that we can learn from what baristas and Amazon workers and media workers have been doing, and that there is a substantial possibility of reversing the ongoing decline in unionization rates. His book is a vital toolkit for those seeking to transform their workplaces and the world, and he joins to day to give us clear, concrete lessons that he gleaned from hundreds of interviews with union members around America.

"Courageous shop-floor organizers have dared to take on corporate behemoths, from Amazon to Starbucks to Volkswagen. Waves of unionization have begun to spread across multiple industries, including higher education, journalism, food service, auto, social services, retail, tech, and museums, as well as nonprofits. And not only are workers fighting back—they’re winning. Despite widespread assumptions among labor leaders and pundits that lightly-staffed organizing can’t compel employers to collectively bargain, workers have won first contracts in a wide range of industries and companies, including at deep-pocketed chains like Apple. Grassroots workplace fightbacks have also wrested major concessions for millions more workers. No less importantly, these struggles have empowered and transformed their protagonists. In a society where people are conditioned to quietly obey bosses—and at a moment in history marked by pervasive hopelessness—joining together with your coworkers to fight back can be an ecstatic, liberating experience." — Eric Blanc, We Are The Union