When Organizing Gets Personal
A new labor-relations study says the next wave of union organizing isn’t just about pay. It is about identity.
University of Illinois professor John Kallas interviewed 53 Starbucks Workers United activists and found what he calls “intersectional organizing,” workers uniting around shared social identities like sexual orientation, race, and disability, not just wages and hours.
His theory is pointed. Starbucks marketed itself as progressive and attracted workers who bought that image. When those workers felt the company betrayed its stated values, they organized around both material and identity-based grievances. As Kallas put it, “Starbucks almost hired itself into this problem.”
After five years and hundreds of stores, Starbucks workers still have no first contract. Kallas is blunt about why: nothing in US labor law forces an employer to agree to a contract, and a well-resourced company “can delay, delay, delay.”
To me, that is the real headline. Identity fuels organizing energy, but it doesn’t overcome the structural reality of first-contract bargaining. Passion starts campaigns. What finishes them?
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