Dolly is gone, y’all. i found myself messaging random people yesterday, Dolly died, like it was a national emergency.
it’s so rare that there is a public figure that is so universally loved by all ages and all races. she felt like a living embodiment of joy and kindness. and in an era where keeping our own spirits bright feels like a daily battle, her departure is more than a loss of life. it feels like the loss of a guiding beacon of light. imagine living life in such a way that when you go, the world feels a little darker. i think it’s the delicious, satisfying fruit of a life well lived and doing what you came here to do.
we immediately started playing 9 to 5 on the speakers yesterday. Dolly was lethal with her pen. a master storyteller dripped up and draped down in rhinestones. this is the supremacy of the written word. whenever we need to feel her warmth, match her grit or experience her love again, we can always return to her words.
and her words in 9 to 5 feel more relevant than ever:
workin’ 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin’
barely gettin’ by, it’s all takin’ and no givin’
they just use your mind and they never give you credit
it’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it
9 to 5, for service and devotion
you would think that I would deserve a fair promotion
want to move ahead, but the boss won’t seem to let me
i swear sometimes that man is out to get me
…speaking of men out to get her.
this week, we’ve been celebrating journalist Karen Attiah’s victory over The Washington Post. Karen is an opinion writer. and if you haven’t been following the story, last year in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, Karen essentially posted her opinions about it all. WashPo got upset and didn’t like her opinions. so they found just cause and fired her because they said she violated their social media policy. everyone, everywhere said, wait… you’re firing the opinion writer for her opinions? it felt unjust. because it was. and the uproar was immediate. and she fought back.
and, almost a year after her sudden firing, Karen announced she won and got her job back. The Washington Post has been ordered to reinstate her immediately with full back pay and benefits. they also don’t realize that their attempt to silence her only produced a bigger platform. over the last year, she’s gained nearly 60,000 subscribers on Substack, launched courses and has continued to uplift her voice and bring light to issues that matter most. the literal definition of preparing a table in the presence of your enemies.
Karen was able to win this fight because she was a part of a union. and in today’s climate where the modern workplace is breaking and there is so much cultural intimidation, lack of accountability and obsession of power and money from our leaders, it made us think, should we be pushing and pursuing unions more aggressively?
i dropped the question into our ftl subscriber chat to get some thoughts from our community, and the brilliant NY attorney, Pamela Rosario, Esq., confirmed our thinking. she said, I used to practice employment law and I honestly think, in today’s world, unions are one of the last pieces of protection employees have.
now unions are something that historically have had old school, blue-collar connotations. originally created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they were there to protect employees from crazy workplace conditions. and were used to equip workers to demand a better living wage, 8-hour workdays and basic workplace safety.
today, the number of unionized workers has jumped to nearly 15 million people, the highest raw count in over 15 years. and the people driving the change are young people.
the kids are alright
gen z is the most pro-union generation in decades. and historically, young people were the least likely to care about unions. but today, 88% of adults under 35 approve of labor unions, the highest of any living generation.
and of course they would. they are entering a broken job market. they are existing in skyrocketing housing costs, student loan debt and flat wage growth. so many young people are finding themselves either unemployed or trapped in jobs that aren’t working. they are realizing faster than us that the social contract we have with work is broken and the promise of work hard and you’ll be taken care of is bullsh*t a myth.
they are organizing in the most modern, cool way. unlike the old folks who waited for a top-down union rep to save them, young people are like, hold my beer. they are using platforms like Signal, Telegram, Slack and Discord to share salary data, organizing templates and communicate outside of corporate structures. they are galvanizing and breaking down labor laws on TikTok.
this generation actually believes in the power of dei and workplace fairness is not just about higher wages and better benefits for them. they feel like it’s a necessary, legal check on corporate power that has gotten out of control.
when unions come to the valley
the place unions haven’t quite taken hold of yet is silicon valley, but it feels like they could be next because tech employees realize there is no loyalty and no mercy there either.
Kickstarter became the first prominent tech company to unionize. this happened in 2020. when their initial contract expired, they went on a 42-day strike to protect the 4-day work week and block leadership from deploying unvetted AI tools and they also secured higher base salaries.
companies like Google and Apple have not been as supportive when they hear their employees start to organize. this might be part of the reason everyone wants to start monitoring all employee communications. we’ve seen tactics where they will find convenient reasons to fire staff who are leading pro-union discussions. or try to delay, delay, delay and drag their feet on contract negotiations for months, even years trying to kill momentum.
but we shouldn’t be surprised to see far some of these companies will go to avoid unions. companies like Spacex and Amazon (no surprise) have faced so many unfair labor practice charges that they are attempting to dismantle the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) itself and deem it unconstitutional.
because they know if we realize the leverage we actually have, their era of corporate dominance becomes compromised.
we are at the mercy of at-will
today, about 80% of us are at-will employees, which means that our bosses can legally fire us for any reason without a single day of warning or severance.
we talk about this all the time here on ftl, but so many of modern workplace practices were created in the 19th century, back around slavery y’all. and at-will is another of them.
manufacturing and railroad giants wanted total flexibility to scale-up and downsize overnight. so they worked with judges to come with the concept of freedom of contract. which essentially means that it is fair for workers to quit whenever they want and bosses should also have the freedom to fire whenever they want. but it COMPLETELY ignored the obvious power imbalance, leaving us to fend for ourselves unless we had a private union contract.
ironically, the only state in America where this isn’t true is Montana. which happened in 1987 because courts were handing down massive payouts to wrongfully fired workers. so companies were like, hold up. we don’t want to keep paying this much. so they created a good cause job projection and probation period for workers and businesses got a cap on how much they could be sued for. as a result, managing employees in Montana is completely different than the rest of the country.
and btw, we are the only country in the world that operates like this. in almost all of Europe and the most powerful countries in Asia, at-will employment doesn’t even exist. once we again, we are on the global stage looking crazy.
i’m not saying you should start a union…
but let’s just say you were interested in starting one…
you form a secret organizing committee with trusted coworkers, maybe on Signal or Telegram or Substack dm’s…not on company tech.
you quietly collect signed Union Authorization Cards until you hit at least 30% of the staff.
once you have the cards, you ask management for voluntary recognition. when they inevitably say no, you take those cards to the NLRB (praying it doesn’t get dismantled) to schedule an official election.
finally, a neutral secret-ballot vote is held, and you only need a simple majority of whoever actually turns up to vote to legally unionize the whole workplace.
so for instance, if your company had 100 employees, 30 people would need have Union Authorization cards. but let’s say only 20 people showed up to vote, you only need 11 people to vote yes for the entire place to be unionized.
ok… too much too soon?
to support the modern labor movement, vote with your wallet and support unionized shops. respect picket lines when workers risk everything to go on strike. vote on the ballots for policies that actually protect the person over profit. practice quiet, powerful solidarity at work. talk openly about your salary. transparency is the first thing corporations try to kill because they know information is power. when you see a manager unfairly targeting a co-worker, don’t look the other way. and if you are an entrepreneur, prioritize generous and healthy workplace policies from inception.
because the truth is, we are not protected in the workplace. and as the power imbalance continues to widen, the small protections we have are at risk.
not to get too deep, but i sometimes forget MLK jr was assassinated once he got deeper into the labor movement. isn’t that interesting?
i’m so so deeply grateful that Karen Attiah had a union contract protecting her when Jeff Bezos The Washington Post tried to silence her voice.
it’s not lost on me that Dolly Parton was singing about the literal plight of the everyday worker in one of her most popular songs that won two Grammys and was nominated for an Academy Award. maybe it’s so popular because it represents one of our greatest universal pains. our workplace pain. we will always love you, Dolly.
idk, if they don’t feel the need to protect us, maybe it’s time we start protecting ourselves.
just a thought.
sending u so much love,
m
sources:
https://postguild.org/faq/
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
https://www.epi.org/publication/workers-resolve-drives-increase-in-unionization-in-2025/
https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/employees/social-media-0
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/washington-post-ordered-reinstate-columnist-karen-attiah-nyt-reports-2026-08-24/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/technology/kickstarter-union.html