"Hector Figueroa: The Labor Movement Can Rise Again", 12 July 2019

... Workers are ready to do more... In 2018, nearly half a million workers in America went on strike or stopped work because of a labor dispute, the largest number since 1986...That’s a good sign, but it’s not enough to reshape our economy... our movement needs a big and ambitious plan to organize.

...Poll after poll, especially of millennials, women and independent voters, finds that Americans want unions to be more powerful and influential. But only 10.5 percent of American workers now have a union...Our lack of ambition is having direct effects on the very members we should be fighting for. With fewer workers in unions, we have become weaker at the bargaining table...

It’s not too late to rebuild our movement. Many... thought the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Janus case last year, which aimed to strip unions of vital dues resources, would kill the movement... But we survived, and workers are mobilizing and organizing, with and sometimes without a union behind them...

... [U]nions cannot focus only on dues-paying members. We need a broader movement that helps every family — union or nonunion — win economic security... We need... industrywide efforts to mobilize large numbers of workers... [and] unions need to pool their resources and work together, with the shared goal of creating secure union jobs, regardless of which union the workers may end up in....