Opinion: The message is clear: Today’s workers want a voice at work

It has been a very eventful 12 months for American workers since last Labor Day. At that point in time, the “Great Resignation” was well underway. Spurred by COVID, millions of American workers had quit their jobs in the months before Labor Day and millions more would resign in the months after.

Then in October, in the face of years of insufficient pay increases and widespread dissatisfaction with employers’ reaction to COVID, the U.S. saw a significant strike wave across a variety of industries. The media labeled the strike wave “Striketober,” although it continued through November.

In December, workers at a Starbucks in Buffalo voted for union representation. The win spurred employees at other Starbucks stores to organize. Since that first victory, baristas at over 200 stores have voted in a union and more than 300 stores in 36 states have filed to have a union election.

In March, 600 tech workers at the New York Times overwhelmingly voted for a union and REI store employees in New York City organized the first union in company history. In April, employees organized the first Amazon warehouse in the nation. And in June, unions were established for the first time at Apple and Trader Joe’s stores.

What’s behind this activism? Workers are unhappy with their current employment situation, and they want a greater voice at work.

In a recent study, MIT Professor Tom Kochan and associates asked a national sample of workers about their views of their workplace. The key finding from the study was the existence of a “voice gap.” The “voice gap” is the difference between the influence workers expect at work and what they actually experience. Between 52 and 62% of workers reported such a gap.

In a democratic society, it is not surprising that people want to have some “say” about their work and their workplace. For example, an IT specialist might want a more flexible schedule to attend his daughter’s soccer games after school. Or a nurse might have an alternative to a treatment protocol mandated by her hospital that is causing unnecessary pain to patients, but no one in administration will listen to her idea.

This desire for voice in the workplace is not new. But workers have often suppressed this desire in return for job security and a middle-class lifestyle. While today’s employees have been working hard and keeping their part of the deal (worker productivity increased 62% between 1979 and 2020), many employers have not (over that same period hourly compensation rose just 17.5%).

Today’s labor market has put workers in the strongest position they have been in for years. The labor shortage has emboldened workers to take action to improve their life at work. And they are doing this without fear of losing their jobs because they know they can easily find employment elsewhere.

This, combined with the desire of Gen Z and Millennials for meaningful work, greater work life balance and increased voice, means that the status quo at work is no longer acceptable to a significant part of the workforce.

The mostly young workers at Starbucks are a case in point. They contend that Starbucks has not lived up to its mission “to inspire and nurture the human spirit,” in its dealings with employees. Ultimately, many of the employees fighting for a union say they love Starbucks, and they think they can make the company better, if it will engage and listen to them as true “partners.”

Whether the events of last year represent a resurgence of worker power that will fundamentally change employer-employee relationships in the U.S., or a temporary shift that will dissipate when unemployment rises, is not yet clear. But it is likely that the efforts of workers to gain a greater voice in their workplace will continue in the year ahead.