The global ‘hot shop’: COVID‐19 as a union organising catalyst

• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Author: Michael David Maffie
• Date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12367

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The global ‘hot shop’: COVID-19 as a union

organising catalyst

Michael David Maffie

Pennsylvania State University, State

College, Pennsylvania, USA

Correspondence

Michael David Maffie, Pennsylvania State

University, 506C Keller Building,

304 Fischer Rd, State College, PA 16801,

USA.

Email: maffie@psu.edu

Abstract

There is an emerging narrative that the global COVID-

19 pandemic has led to a resurgence of labour activism.

Despite this popular narrative, scholars lack empirical

data on the relationship between workers' exposure to

the pandemic and their interest in collective represen-

tation. Using original survey data from 240 ride-hail

drivers, I find that greater exposure to the COVID-19

virus is associated with greater interest in joining a

labour union. This article provides the first empirical

evidence linking the COVID-19 pandemic to the recent

wave of labour activism, giving rise to what I refer to as

a‘global hot shop’phenomenon.

1|INTRODUCTION

In the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a wave of strikes and union

organising campaigns. The popular press described 2021 as the ‘year of labour strife’

(Widdicome, 2022), and workers previously thought to be beyond the reach of the labour move-

ment, such as those working at Amazon or Starbucks, held recognition elections

(Sainato, 2022). Additional evidence for labour's resurgence can be seen in the strike waves that

broke out in the Fall of 2021 (Harrington, 2022), with some universities even developing ‘strike

trackers’to keep track of the work stoppages rippling across the United States (Catt, 2021).

Combined, these events gave rise to the conventional wisdom that the pandemic has laid bare

the power imbalance in the workplace, giving rise to a new sense of worker solidarity and inter-

est in collective representation (Goodin-Smith, 2020; Herman, 2020; Stringer, 2020).

Despite the narrative that COVID-19 sparked a novel form of labour activism, however,

scholars lack empirical data that the pandemic had an effect on workers' interest in unions or

collective organisation. Furthermore, recent evidence has started to raise questions about the

DOI: 10.1111/irj.12367

© 2022 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Ind. Relat. 2022;53:207–219. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/irj 207