Labor Day is viewed as a significant holiday in the U.S.A. However, its celebration of the contribution of workers to our society has clearly waned since its establishment. It is socially viewed now as the traditional “end of summer” and while this cultural attitude has not changed significantly in recent years, the role of workers and Unions in our society is clearly on the rise. The approval rating for Unions has been at 67% or higher for the past few years, its highest rating since 1965.
This increase in favorability is probably one of the factors giving rise to the increased organizing efforts going on, both in traditional, large employer industrial settings and in the service and restaurant/hospitality sectors. The food industry sector has traditionally been a difficult sector in which to organize. In restaurants there are usually long and difficult shifts, small staffing numbers and often transient. Those difficulties have begun to be overcome. An exciting example is that of the workers at Barboncino Pizzeria in Brooklyn, N.Y., who in July of 2023 by a vote of 26 to 0 became the first pizzeria in NYC to unionize.
How did these workers accomplish this? When they were confronted by some awful working conditions, they talked among themselves and someone reached out to an organization called the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee.(EWOC) An organizer from EWOC got the workers in touch with Workers United, an SEIU affiliate that developed out of the Fight For $15 campaign and Starbucks organizing through SBWU.
As Alex Dinndorf, a Barboncino organizing committee member said, “Organizations like EWOC and Workers United are radicalizing a generation of young people . . . This is the accumulation of people being radicalized by work. . . “
Workers at Barboncino of course aren’t the only workers to organize using the Barboncino example. Workers at the Downtown Brooklyn location of the Alamo Cinema Drafthouse have organized, as well as more Starbucks cafes in NYC. Workers at the Lodi restaurant at Rockefeller Central lost their election but the NLRB has recently ruled that the employer violated the law and the NLRB may force the employer to recognize the Union.
These organizing efforts clearly point to the need for workers to have resources available when they have decided to form a Union at their workplace. The Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, Workers United and the Inside Organizers School are all organizations that can help workers get started on that goal.
SOURCES:
https://jacobin.com/2023/05/barboncino-restaurant-union-workers-united-bwu-ewoc
https://nygroove.nyc/how-to-unionize-your-pizza-shop/
https://news.gallup.com/poll/510281/unions-strengthening.aspx
https://timesquareweekly.com/lodi-restaurant-case-could-ease-union-barriers-in-nyc/