In June, the Supreme Court issued its long-await­ed rul­ing in Janus v. AFSCME—and it was just as bad as every­one feared. In a 5‑to‑4 deci­sion, the court found that pub­lic-sec­tor unions vio­lat­ed the First Amend­ment by col­lect­ing so-called fair-share fees from work­ers who aren’t union mem­bers but ben­e­fit from col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing regardless.

A report by the Illi­nois Eco­nom­ic Pol­i­cy Insti­tute esti­mat­ed that the result­ing ​“free-rid­er” prob­lem could even­tu­al­ly lead to the loss of 726,000 pub­lic-sec­tor union mem­bers nation­wide. This dimin­ished strength could result, in turn, in a 3.6 per­cent decline in pub­lic-sec­tor wages.

But the imme­di­ate fall­out has been less cat­a­stroph­ic than some fore­cast. Pub­lic-sec­tor unions took a hit to their finances, as auto­mat­ic deduc­tions from non-mem­bers ceased. But many are report­ing that mem­ber­ship is hold­ing steady, or even increas­ing. That’s thanks in large part to pro­tec­tive mea­sures enact­ed in blue states, as well as proac­tive mem­ber­ship orga­niz­ing by unions them­selves — both of which the Right is attempt­ing to over­turn or counter with its own aggres­sive ​“opt out” cam­paigns. While it’s far too ear­ly to tell what the long-term impact of Janus will be, the rul­ing wasn’t the knock­out blow that anti-union forces had hoped for.

2. Work­ers resist­ed the depor­ta­tion machine.

This sum­mer, out­rage over the Trump administration’s fam­i­ly sep­a­ra­tion pol­i­cy sparked mass protests as well as cre­ative new forms of work­place resistance.

In June, hun­dreds of Microsoft work­ers signed onto an open let­ter demand­ing that the com­pa­ny can­cel its $19.4 mil­lion con­tract with Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment (ICE) for pro­cess­ing data and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence capabilities.

“As the peo­ple who build the tech­nolo­gies that Microsoft prof­its from, we refuse to be com­plic­it,” read the let­ter, which was pub­lished in The New York Times.

Tech work­ers weren’t the only ones to take this stand. After flight atten­dant Hunt Palmquist spot­ted an ICE agent with five young immi­grant chil­dren on one of his flights, and con­firmed that the chil­dren were being trans­port­ed to a deten­tion cen­ter, he pledged to refuse to work any such flights in the future.

​“I have made a deci­sion that if I’m ever assigned to a flight with chil­dren who’ve been sep­a­rat­ed from their fam­i­lies, I will imme­di­ate­ly remove myself from the trip due to the nature of this uncon­scionable act by my gov­ern­ment and my employ­er’s com­plic­i­ty,” he wrote in a June edi­to­r­i­al in the Hous­ton Chron­i­cle. ​“I have told my sto­ry to many of my flight atten­dant col­leagues and they have pledged to do the same.”

The same week, a num­ber of major air­lines, includ­ing Palmquist’s employ­er, issued state­ments ask­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment not to use their planes to fly immi­grant chil­dren sep­a­rat­ed from their parents.

Both actions had their lim­i­ta­tions — Microsoft issued state­ments oppos­ing Trump’s poli­cies but has yet to can­cel its ICE con­tract, and air­lines con­tin­ue to aid the dai­ly deten­tions and depor­ta­tions that take place out­side the head­lines of fam­i­ly sep­a­ra­tion. But work­ers rec­og­niz­ing their role in the depor­ta­tion machine — and there­fore their pow­er to halt it — is a promis­ing devel­op­ment. In some indus­tries, unions have formed new coali­tions to fight mea­sures like the can­cel­la­tion of tem­po­rary pro­tect­ed sta­tus and pro­mote the mes­sage that immi­grants’ rights are work­ers’ rights.

3. Incar­cer­at­ed peo­ple coor­di­nat­ed a nation­wide prison strike.

After years of esca­lat­ing protests by incar­cer­at­ed peo­ple, this fall saw what was prob­a­bly the largest prison strike in U.S. his­to­ry. One of the key demands issued by strik­ers was ​“an imme­di­ate end to prison slav­ery” and pay­ment of the pre­vail­ing wage for all labor per­formed by pris­on­ers. It’s typ­i­cal for incar­cer­at­ed peo­ple to be paid as lit­tle as $1 an hour, includ­ing for dan­ger­ous work such as fight­ing wild­fires. In some states, they are paid noth­ing at all.

Coor­di­nat­ed with the sup­port of out­side groups includ­ing the Free Alaba­ma Move­ment and the Incar­cer­at­ed Work­ers Orga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee, the strike report­ed­ly reached at least 33 facil­i­ties in 15 states and last­ed for 19 days. Pris­on­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed in work stop­pages, com­mis­sary boy­cotts and hunger strikes at immense per­son­al risk, and some par­tic­i­pants con­tin­ue to report retal­i­a­tion months lat­er, accord­ing to sup­port­ing organizations.

But the strike gar­nered wide­spread media atten­tion and lent momen­tum to one of the strik­ers’ oth­er key demands: vot­ing rights for ex-pris­on­ers. In Novem­ber, Florid­i­ans vot­ed to restore the vote to 1.4 mil­lion peo­ple with felony convictions.

4. #MeToo joined forces with the labor movement.

#MeToo was nev­er lim­it­ed to rich Hol­ly­wood actress­es, as some bad-faith cri­tiques sug­gest­ed. The hash­tag was orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed by activist Tarana Burke to con­nect women of col­or with sup­port and resources for sex­u­al assault, and has also helped shine a light on sex­u­al harass­ment in low-wage sectors.

But until recent­ly, the move­ment was gen­er­al­ly more focused on pub­lic pres­sure and legal action than on work­place orga­niz­ing. That changed this fall, when McDonald’s went on what orga­niz­ers say was the first-ever mul­ti-state strike against sex­u­al harass­ment. After McDonald’s employ­ees filed com­plaints with the U.S. Equal Employ­ment Oppor­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion this spring, say­ing the com­pa­ny was rou­tine­ly ignor­ing reports sex­u­al harass­ment, work­ers esca­lat­ed by going on a one-day strike at McDonald’s restau­rants in at least 10 cities in Sep­tem­ber. The actions were backed by both Fight for 15 and Time’s Up, the legal fund launched ear­li­er this year by a group of women in Hollywood.

In Novem­ber, work­ers staged a walk­out against sex­u­al harass­ment in anoth­er indus­try rife with it. In a water­shed moment for tech, more than 20,000 Google employ­ees world­wide — over 20 per­cent of the company’s total work­force — walked off the job. The one-day action came in the wake of an arti­cle in The New York Times reveal­ing that Google had hand­ed out mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar exit pack­ages to male exec­u­tives accused of mis­con­duct while remain­ing silent about the problem.

Sex­u­al harass­ment is a prob­lem that cuts across indus­tries, but in all of them, work­er pow­er is a key part of the solution.

5. Work­ers made inroads into union­iz­ing Amazon.

This year, thou­sands of Ama­zon work­ers across Europe went on a three-day strike. Yet despite wide­spread reports of dra­con­ian work­ing con­di­tions in its ​“ful­fill­ment cen­ters,” Ama­zon has suc­cess­ful­ly fend­ed off all attempts at union­iza­tion in the Unit­ed States since the company’s found­ing in 1994.

That’s why it was so remark­able when, ear­li­er this year, a group of Soma­li Ama­zon work­ers in Min­neso­ta forced the company’s local man­age­ment to the table to nego­ti­ate over work­ing con­di­tions. Agi­tat­ed by the lack of progress, the work­ers ral­lied in the park­ing lot of one of Amazon’s Min­neapo­lis facil­i­ties this month, demand­ing safe pro­duc­tiv­i­ty tar­gets, cul­tur­al sen­si­tiv­i­ty for Mus­lim employ­ees and a fund for afford­able housing.

The group orga­nized with the sup­port of the Awood Cen­ter, an East African work­er cen­ter in Min­neso­ta. But now that cracks are show­ing in Amazon’s anti-union armor, tra­di­tion­al unions are plan­ning to take anoth­er shot. Bloomberg report­ed in Decem­ber that work­ers at a recent­ly opened ful­fill­ment cen­ter in Stat­en Island plan to seek recog­ni­tion with the Retail, Whole­sale and Depart­ment Store Union (RWD­SU), which is also orga­niz­ing employ­ees at Ama­zon-sub­sidiary Whole Foods.

RWD­SU Pres­i­dent Stu­art Appel­baum told Bloomberg that the union plans to use the gen­er­ous sub­si­dies Ama­zon is receiv­ing for its new HQ2 in New York as a pres­sure point. ​“If tax­pay­ers are giv­ing Ama­zon $3 bil­lion, then tax­pay­ers have the right to demand that Ama­zon stop being a union-bust­ing company.”

6. Team­sters lead­er­ship flout­ed union democ­ra­cy at Unit­ed Par­cel Ser­vice (UPS).

But in a year when Ama­zon work­ers made huge strides, more than 240,000 UPS work­ers fell behind. UPS is both a provider for and a com­peti­tor to Ama­zon. When the lat­ter, non-union com­pa­ny announced it was bump­ing employ­ees’ min­i­mum wage to $15 an hour, it added insult to injury for union­ized UPS work­ers who had just been offered a new con­tract con­tain­ing a start­ing pay of $13, with no ​“catch-up rais­es” for those who had been under­paid for years.

Incred­i­bly, thanks to a mas­sive ​“vote no” cam­paign and a viral YouTube video called ​“Why the UPS 2018 Con­tract Sucks!” 54 per­cent of rank-and-file mem­bers vot­ed in Octo­ber to reject the deal. Even more incred­i­bly, Team­ster brass quick­ly announced that they would rat­i­fy it any­way, cit­ing a loop­hole in the union’s constitution.

As Joe Allen wrote in Jacobin, Team­sters Pres­i­dent James Hoffa’s bid to side with the boss­es will have far-reach­ing consequences:

Hoffa’s sab­o­tage at UPS is not only a cat­a­stro­phe for UPS Team­sters — it is a gift to antiu­nion forces in the Janus era. If a boss want­ed to make up a sto­ry to defeat a fledg­ling union dri­ve — with indif­fer­ent union lead­ers who col­lect mem­bers’ dues, nego­ti­ate a con­tract with a low­er start­ing pay than non-union Ama­zon, and then fla­grant­ly ignore those work­ers’ clear­ly and demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly stat­ed objec­tions to that con­tract — they couldn’t come up with one as good as what’s just played out between UPS and the Teamsters.

7. Teach­ers rewrote the rules.

When the Chica­go Teach­ers Union (CTU) struck in 2012, the CEO of the pow­er­ful UNO char­ter chain crowed that his schools con­tin­ued to be open ​“with­out interruption.”

Oh, how the tables have turned. The nation’s first-ever char­ter strike took place in Chica­go this Decem­ber when teach­ers at 15 schools in the Acero net­work, the suc­ces­sor to UNO, walked out over stalled con­tract negotiations.

The strike last­ed four days and end­ed in a resound­ing vic­to­ry for the union, which won pay rais­es for teach­ers and para­pro­fes­sion­als, a reduc­tion in class sizes and sanc­tu­ary school pro­tec­tions for undoc­u­ment­ed stu­dents and families.

While the char­ter strike was a very dif­fer­ent kind of action than the teacher rebel­lions that roiled red states this spring, they have some­thing key in com­mon. In both blue cities and red states, the polit­i­cal class has spent decades divert­ing funds from pub­lic edu­ca­tion to pri­vate inter­ests, then turn­ing around and cry­ing broke. Teach­ers deliv­ered a pow­er­ful repu­di­a­tion of that strat­e­gy, as well as ongo­ing attempts to strip them of their pow­er as workers.

The teacher strike wave is still con­tin­u­ing — Los Ange­les teach­ers just set a strike date of Jan­u­ary 10, and Indi­ana teach­ers have threat­ened a walk­out next year if the leg­is­la­ture fails to address teacher pay.

8. Work­ers fought the oil and gas industry.

The labor move­ment remains deeply divid­ed over cli­mate action, with groups like nurs­es sup­port­ing ambi­tious mea­sures while con­struc­tion unions and build­ing trades large­ly remain bit­ter­ly opposed.

But this year brought a num­ber of reminders that it’s pos­si­ble to reframe this debate and con­front the fos­sil fuel indus­try as a class ene­my, as well as an ene­my of the plan­et. In 2018, for exam­ple, strik­ing Okla­homa teach­ers won a tax-hike on oil pro­duc­tion to fund pub­lic edu­ca­tion, and Baton Rouge teach­ers suc­cess­ful­ly killed anoth­er tax break for Exxon by threat­en­ing to strike.

The Green New Deal res­o­lu­tion cur­rent­ly gain­ing steam pro­vides the best oppor­tu­ni­ty yet to unite the cli­mate move­ment and the labor move­ment, expo­nen­tial­ly increas­ing the pow­er of both. In addi­tion to a ​“cli­mate jobs guar­an­tee” in the cur­rent draft that pro­vides for uni­ver­sal, liv­ing-wage jobs, labor could seize the momen­tum around the pop­u­lar plan to call for the inclu­sion of long-sought union recog­ni­tion and col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights.

There are hope­ful signs as the year clos­es out. Last week, the Ser­vice Employ­ees Inter­na­tion­al Union’s Local 32BJ — a pow­er­ful prop­er­ty ser­vices union with 175,000 mem­bers—announced its sup­port for the Green New Deal.

Pres­i­dent Hec­tor Figueroa vowed to push oth­er labor lead­ers to sup­port the mea­sure, telling The Huff­in­g­ton Post, ​“I ful­ly expect oth­er unions to say, ​‘We are behind this’” by ear­ly next year.