Rideshare drivers and food delivery workers are organizing to secure their employee rights against Uber, Lyft, Doordash, and Instacart. Hear how workers across the globe are battling not only their employers, but also a fundamental attack on what it means to be a worker.
Hong Kong unions and civil society were crushed in 2020, driving countless activists into jail or exile. A coup-from-above by the president of South Korea in 2024 was defeated by general strikes and months of mobilization from below. Japan's right-wing president broke with decades of demilitarized diplomacy. Learn about these profound challenges—not dissimilar to those we face in the U.S.—and how union-led responses are challenging authoritarianism.
As tariffs and trade threats destabilize the global supply chain, auto workers across the globe are taking on bold fights. Hear union activists from Brazil, Italy, Korea, and Mexico describe the struggles in this strategic sector and identify key points of leverage for holding auto giants to account.
Corporations reach across the world... labor should too! Hear how workers are making contact with others who share a common employer, industry, or supply chain, flexing our power to back each other up, and dealing with practical challenges like language barriers.
Semiconductor production in the U.S. is set to triple in the next decade, with hundreds of billions in private investment and federal and state subsidies. But these new chip factories bring with them exploitation of workers and toxic byproducts that can contaminate our air, water, and land. We’ll share reports from the front lines of struggles in the semiconductor industry and talk about building worker and community power to make sure these companies are good employers and neighbors.
A chance for grassroots labor activists from China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea to exchange with their counterparts in the Asian diasporic community in the U.S.
Friday June 12, 2026 5:10pm - 6:40pm CDT Rosemont B
Building democratic and militant unions, from the bottom up, has guided Labor Notes for decades. These international unionists describe how this approach is taking hold and thriving elsewhere.
Chinese capital and workers have spread across the Global South, where they find heightened exploitation and deteriorating labor and environmental standards. Learn about the conditions and struggles of Chinese workers, both within China and overseas—including in the Middle East and Southeast Asia—and consider possibilities for building international solidarity.
Educators everywhere are facing the pain of savage austerity, government coercion, and attempts to repress union militancy. But bottom-up resistance and resilience are also everywhere. From a massive strike this March by teachers across Catalonia, Spain, to "little fires everywhere" in the UK, to resistance against Trump-like demagoguery in Alberta, Canada, the stories will teach and inspire.
With facilities on every continent except Antarctica and more than 1.5 million employees, Amazon is the infrastructure that makes the global economy move, from the virtual to the physical world. One click can set in motion a vast network of warehouses, cargo ships, planes, and delivery vans. Get a glimpse of how Amazon workers in Spain, Germany, Poland and France are organizing against a corporate giant.
This meeting brings together workers from around the globe who are in various stages of starting their own Labor Notes-like networks or organizations. Whether you’re well on your way or just beginning to dream, come exchange ideas and experiences.
Catastrophic fires, floods, earthquakes, and the daily degradation of life from industrial pollution are the urgent realities of emergency responders around the world. Firefighters, first responders, and emergency room nurses are embedded in these harsh realities day after day, while our governments cut budgets, reduce services, and ignore long-term consequences. But, as these unionists explain, it is possible to use the power of emergency workers to forge a path forward.
In Spain, the long and militant tradition of tenant unions is now being reshaped by the influence of bottom-up teacher union practices, and converging into a movement of workers resisting exploitation by landlords. In the U.S., solidarity organizing between teacher unions and tenant unions is also emerging. Both will be explored here.
