THERE IS POWER WITHOUT A UNION

Adam Ryan, a 31-year-old part-time sales associate at Target, is guided by the belief that nearly everything good for workers will not be accomplished by paid organizers, nonprofits, or lobbying groups but will have to come from low-paid workers. The result is Target Workers Unite, a group that Ryan created in 2018 and has had involvement from Target employees across 44 states. There are currently about 500 TWU members, and that number is rapidly growing through the Covid-19 crisis as workers struggle to pay their bills and deal with managers who have underplayed the disease's threat and with a corporation that has, like many of its ilk, refused to give employees comprehensive paid sick leave. For now, TWU is a little more anarchic. There's no nonprofit status, no outside donors, just rank-and-file Target workers organizing themselves, largely through the Internet.