Amytess Girgis is a doctoral candidate in Politics. Her research focuses on the evolution of the U.S. labor movement and its relationship to broader social movement-building. She examines how precarity and changing political conditions exacerbate challenges to labor organizing, how those conditions shape workers’ tactics in under-organized sectors, and how these trends situate the labor movement in relation to other social movement organizations. Her doctoral dissertation explores these themes through the lens of the Starbucks Workers United campaign. She draws on intensive fieldwork, organizing documents, and work stoppage data to analyze how Starbucks workers sustain union organizing amid exceptionally hostile conditions.
Amytess completed her MPhil in Politics (Comparative Government) at the University of Oxford in 2023, and her graduate study at Oxford has been supported by the Rhodes Scholarship. Prior to her time at Oxford, Amytess completed a BA in Political Science from the University of Michigan, where she was funded by the Penny & Roe Stamps Scholarship.
