On August 14, 1945, Life magazine photojournalist, Alfred Eisenstaedt, captured the spirit of the nation in his photo of a sailor embracing a nurse in New York’s Times Square. It was the end of World War II, and America was at the top of its game. Although the US had been late to enter the war, after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it was all-hands-on-deck. In his best-selling book, Tom Brokaw described the veterans and their peers as “the greatest generation.”

When the war ended, families reunited. Sweethearts got married and spent lots of quality time together. The birth rate—dubbed “the baby boom”—became exceedingly high. The children born in the years following World War II grew up in a period of economic prosperity. Many of the children of “the greatest generation” grew rich, far beyond their parents’ dreams. Decades later, Baby Boomers’ wealth is now shifting to younger generations in what has been referred to as The Great Wealth Transfer.

Recently, it seems like the stars have aligned in favor of unions. When President Biden was elected in 2020, a part of his workplace initiatives included the promotion of collective bargaining and the protection of employees’ rights to join and form unions. Then, a global pandemic struck, which made many employees reconsider and question their relationships with their workplaces and employers. In February 2022, the White House Task Force on Worker Organization and Empowerment released a report promoting the Biden Administration’s support for worker organization and collective bargaining by recommending, among other things, that the federal government use its “authority to support worker empowerment by providing information, improving transparency, and making sure existing pro-worker services are delivered in a timely and helpful manner.” Earlier this month, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced that union representation petitions filed with the Board between October 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022, had increased 57% over the prior six-month period. Additionally, unions have made major headlines recently with successful union elections at an Amazon fulfillment center on Long Island and multiple Starbucks locations.