‘It feels like it’s strike summer’: US unions flex muscles across industries

Labor is increasingly militant after years of inaction, energized by star power from the actors' and writers' strikes

It's been a fast and furious few weeks for labor. First, 3,000 workers went on strike at 150 Starbucks, then 6,000 Los Angeles hotel workers walked out, and now 11,500 Hollywood writers and 160,000 television and movie actors have gone on strike. Not only that, 340,000 UPS workers seemed ready to walk out on 1 August, and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union is threatening to strike one or more Detroit automakers later this summer.

It feels like it's strike summer," said Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center. There's tremendous energy within the labor movement, and there's tremendous energy on the strike lines."