Andrea Hsu
Andrea Hsu is NPR's labor and workplace correspondent.
Hsu first joined NPR in 2002 and spent nearly two decades as a producer for All Things Considered. Through interviews and in-depth series, she's covered topics ranging from America's opioid epidemic to emerging research at the intersection of music and the brain. She led the award-winning NPR team that happened to be in Sichuan Province, China, when a massive earthquake struck in 2008. In the coronavirus pandemic, she reported a series of stories on the pandemic's uneven toll on women, capturing the angst that women and especially mothers were experiencing across the country, alone. Hsu came to NPR via National Geographic, the BBC, and the long-shuttered Jumping Cow Coffee House.
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An estimated 4 million workers in the U.S. are struggling to work due to debilitating symptoms from long COVID. The government is urging employers to provide accommodations to keep them on the job. -
As companies that experienced explosive growth in the pandemic begin to scale back, some workers are finding themselves suddenly out of work and scrambling to land something new.
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Union campaigns aren't always successful, but just the threat of a union can lead to change. That's what happened at one coffee company in Milwaukee where workers now have multiple ways to speak up.
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A small business owner in Milwaukee poured everything he had into opening the coffee shop of his dreams. His workers had dreams of their own — and they formed a union.
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Workers are winning union elections across the country, but the next step might be more difficult. Collective bargaining can take years, and some workers never see a contract.
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Less than a month after the Amazon Labor Union unionized the first Amazon facility in the U.S., workers at a smaller warehouse across the street begin voting on whether to join the upstart union.
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Workers at a northern Virginia Starbucks explain why they're seeking a union, and what they hope membership will bring.
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Starbucks founder and two-time CEO Howard Schultz is coming back to the company as interim leader. His return coincides with a widespread union drive by the chain's employees.
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Chris Smalls didn't rely on traditional labor groups for funding or organizing power. Instead he raised money through GoFundMe and talked to former coworkers at their bus stop and over S'mores.
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Votes are being counted in union elections at Amazon warehouses in New York and Alabama. Starbucks is also seeing a rapid rise in union activity.
