While overall union membership rates have declined over the past three decades, the youngest cohort of U.S. workers have injected the workforce with renewed energy for organizing. In 2017, more than 75% of the net new union members added to the ranks industry-wide were under the age of 35, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

As more young people find themselves stuck in precarious jobs with variable hours and benefits, some are turning to unions to help secure their rights. Just look at the recent swelling of support for unionization in “new” industries such as digital media, white-collar tech, and nonprofits.

Most employees in the private sector are protected by the National Labor Relations Act, enacted in 1935 “to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices,” according to the National Labor Relations Board. But the revitalized labor movement has seen some employers being accused of working to dissuade union participation.

This summer, Barstool Sports founder David Portnoy lashed out on Twitter with a public disavowal of unions, while the the Marciano Art Foundation and Kickstarter management were both accused of unfair labor practices, with charges filed with the NLRB, following the timing of employees’ terminations following their unionizing efforts this fall. More recently, executives at Hearst Magazines have reportedly pressured staffers who have voted to unionize to withdraw their request. And Google has reportedly hired an anti-union consulting firm to provide guidance on responding to employee walkouts and other expressions of dissent.

These burgeoning unionization efforts — and management’s responses to them — inspired Teen Vogue to talk to union experts and organizers to determine what you need to know about your right to organize your workplace and how your bosses might try to stop you, no matter where you work.

The National Labor Relations Board recognizes two ways for interested employees to form a union

If at least 30% of workers sign cards or a petition saying they want a union, the NLRB must conduct an election. If a majority of employees vote in favor of organizing, the NLRB will then certify the union. That’s one method of achieving union representation.

Alternatively, employers have the option to voluntarily recognize a union if the majority of employees indicate they want it to represent them, usually by means of signed union-authorization cards, according to the NLRB.

A press release from the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) obtained by Teen Vogue claimed that Kickstarter management preemptively declined to voluntarily recognize its employees’ burgeoning unionization efforts earlier this year, and officially refused the request on October 2, calling for an election instead.

In a phone interview with Teen Vogue, Kickstarter senior communications director David Gallagher offered an explanation for why the company chose this path. He said that supervisors — or any individual with the authority “to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees” — are forbidden to engage in organizing activity under the NLRA, and that two of the Kickstarter staffers involved in the original organizing committee would be considered supervisory employees.

Gallagher called a secret ballot “the most democratic way to make sure that in fact this is what the staff wants.”

In a recent statement to its creators and backers of Kickstarter projects, Hasan, the company's CEO, described “the union framework” as “inherently adversarial.”