One Venti Union
The National Labor Relations board says Starbucks repeatedly broke the law by busting the IWW's organizing attempts in New York. Wobblies are newly active in Seattle and Portland and S.F, and making inroads in businesses like bookstores and coffee shops.
(CEO) Schultz himself stopped in at one of the New York stores this past summer, according to (IWW Organizer) Gross, who was in the store at the time. "I challenged him to sit down and talk," Gross says. "He said 'no' and walked away, visibly nervous."
Schultz might have good reason to be nervous: the nonunion company has more than 100,000 employees. ...Vancouver's 10 Starbucks are organized.And a Double Tall No Foam Half-Caff there for Big Bill Haywood.
posted by JAB at 10:55 PM
2 Comments:
Hmmm, just when I was about to start liking Starbucks again (based on a recent report that they spend more of health care than they do on actual coffee beans)
Not sure how I feel about this. I'm a firm believer than the only thing worse than a union is no unions at all.
Indeed, it's an interesting squeeze for a company that is by some standards reasonably decent to their employees.
But the main issue here, permanent part-time work, is the difference between a decent enough life in a big city and a family-crushing struggle. This is one of the most successful companies in the world, and their unionized stores survive just fine.
I'm hopeful here because the modern IWW (and be assured, these are real Wobblies) are an incredibly clean union (if a bit insufferable at cocktail parties) and because I know too many people working at Starbucks who are at the last stop before they tumble out of the middle class.
It's the part-time issue that can push productive employees in poverty with what I suspect are fairly weak benefits to the company.
Yet again and eternally, the health care economic catastrophy in the US is sucking our lives dry.
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