Over the last year, Starbucks baristas across the US banded together to form unions at the stores where they work. And workers at other big name companies like Amazon have joined in to organise their own workplaces, too. But the FT’s labour and equality correspondent Taylor Nicole Rogers explains how these and other new unions around the US are running up against a classic problem in labour. Can they convince their employers to come to the bargaining table to hash out a contract?