A historic strike by the United Auto Workers (UAW) against General Motors, Ford, and stellantis began on September 15, 2023, signaling a potential shift in labor power dynamics. The union secured a victory by the end of October, demonstrating the renewed strength of organized labor in the U.S.
Labor Unrest Spreads Across Industries
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Recent strikes highlight a growing wave of worker activism in the United States.
- In 2023, strikes impacted the auto industry, Hollywood, and package delivery services.
- Unionization efforts are gaining traction at companies like Amazon and Starbucks.
- Geographic disparities exist in union membership rates across the U.S.
- A documentary,Unions Strike Again,chronicles these recent labor movements.
The automotive strike wasn’t an isolated event.In May 2023, the Writers Guild of America initiated a strike against the Alliance of Film and Television Producers, lasting through September, ultimately achieving an agreement that addressed concerns about remuneration and the use of artificial intelligence in content creation. Simultaneously, in July 2023, actors across the United States began an indefinite strike, further disrupting the entertainment industry.
Documentary Captures a Moment of Labor Revival
these events are explored in the 63-minute documentary Unions Strike Again, created by Eduardo Lozano, a secondary school teacher and union representative of CGT Ensenyament in Catalonia. The film, presented on December 11 at the 26th edition of the CGT València Libertarian Conference, titled libertarian strategies for a dehumanized world, examines the evolving American union model and its recent successes.
LozanoS research involved a 2024 trip to the United States, where he interviewed individuals involved in various union triumphs “in the cradle of capitalism.” The documentary begins by outlining labor legislation and unionization techniques within the country.
Amazon and starbucks: New Fronts in the Union Fight
The push for unionization isn’t limited to conventional industries. In April 2023, a group of activists staged a demonstration intended to signal the company’s willingness to strike. “We were preparing and letting UPS know that this was going to happen every day until you give us something good,” the activist said. “This was strolling all over the United States, people fucked photos with UPS workers, with signs, walking around as if it were a strike; The company got scared and said: these people are going to screw us.”
Hotel Workers Secure Gains in Las Vegas
A recent union victory occurred in January 2025,when the Culinary Workers Union reached a five-year agreement with Virgin Hotels Las Vegas after a 69-day strike,promising salary improvements. This followed a similar strike by the Culinary Union at the Golden Gate hotel-casino in Las Vegas in 2002. In July 2023, hotel workers in Southern California also went on strike, alongside school workers in Los Angeles in March and nurses in New York hospitals in January.
Labor conflict continued into 2025, with Democracy now reporting on August 4 that “thousands of Boeing employees who manufacture US fighter planes are going on strike” and on November 14 that “workers at dozens of Starbucks stores in the United States are holding a one-day strike to demand wage agreements.”
