Posts tagged barista
Is “Salting” the Future of Organized Labor?
August 3, 2025 // MA: Another point to just make is that as a salt, you have to earn your keep. Yes, you’re in closer proximity to people, and you can talk to them and build relationships. But part of that is also like doing the work, being taken seriously as a fellow worker, who knows what the hell you’re talking about. JB: Exactly. You have to be a good coworker. I worked at Starbucks for eight months before ever saying the word union. And my role wasn’t to be the vanguard of the revolution. It was to find people, like Michelle Eisen, whose family were coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, who had a deep sense of social justice and a deep commitment to unions, and who quickly saw that her legacy at Starbucks could be helping build a union for everybody who would come after her.
Podcast Newt Gingrich, Vinnie Vernuccio; Episode 837: Protecting the American Worker
May 5, 2025 // Newt’s guest is Vincent Vernuccio, president and co-founder of the Institute for the American Worker. They discuss the significant labor policy developments and legislative efforts aimed at increasing transparency and accountability in both public and private sectors. Their conversation covers the introduction of the Start Applying Labor Transparency (SALT) Act, which seeks to amend the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 to ensure greater transparency in financial transactions between unions and labor consultants. Vernuccio also explains the implications of President Trump's executive action, Schedule F, which aims to make certain federal employees at-will to enhance accountability. They also discuss the challenges posed by public sector unions and the potential impact of Senator Josh Hawley's Faster Labor Contracts Act, which could impose arbitration on private sector union negotiations. Vernuccio emphasizes the need for modernizing union models to align with today's workforce demands for flexibility and merit-based advancement.
Starbucks announces new barista dress code. Here’s what it looks like
April 17, 2025 // Starting on May 12, the company will require that its workers wear simple colors including any solid black short- or long-sleeved crew-neck, collared or button-up shirts with khaki, black or blue denim bottoms, according to its website. The announcement comes more than a week after Starbucks Workers United, the union representing workers at more than 525 stores across the U.S., sent a letter to the company demanding no dress code changes be implemented at union-represented stores until bargaining is completed.
Starbucks baristas to return to work after five-day strike
December 27, 2024 // The strike shut down more than 300 locations, including some in the Los Angeles area, after more than 5,000 Starbucks workers walked out last Tuesday. The union representing the baristas, called Starbucks Workers United says it is ready to return to the bargaining table. Talks with the company had stalled over pay, staffing and scheduling.
One-day strikes are in: Why unions are keeping it short on the picket line
December 4, 2024 // When it comes to getting employers to cave to demands, the success of one-day strikes is mixed — especially for those low-wage, low-leverage workers. Short work stoppages failed to unionize Walmart in the 2010s, along with those fast food workers from Fight for 15. Starbucks and its unionized employees are still negotiating a first contract. Long strikes are still happening — just ask SAG-AFTRA — and probably won’t be phased out entirely because they still carry much more leverage. Instead, one-day strikes often have a different goal in mind that’s still essential for a union victory — getting workers excited.
Starbucks Barista Asks Labor Board to Overturn Regional Official’s Decision to Continue Blocking Vote to Remove Union
November 21, 2024 // Smith’s appeal challenges the regional NLRB’s refusal to reinstate her decertification petition, which it is still stonewalling despite the resolution of SBWU union officials’ charges against Starbucks that were ostensibly the justification for blocking the workers’ petition for a vote to remove the union. Smith argues that the decision is inconsistent not only with the Board’s past reasons for holding up the petition, but also with workers’ right under federal labor law to promptly have an election to remove a union they do not want.
Opinion | Unmasking Big Labor’s ‘Salts’
March 26, 2024 // Big Labor says these legal protections are the only way the masses can compete with corporate power. The masses don’t seem to agree. The Institute for the American Worker conducted a recent poll on labor fairness, and three-quarters of respondents said unions should have to disclose their paid influencers. The labor-law standard since Taft-Hartley has been freely and transparently negotiated employment contracts. President Biden hasn’t hidden his goal to boost unions by any means available. Lawmakers who want to maintain a fair labor landscape will have to defend it on several fronts.
Starbucks increases US hourly wages and adds other benefits for non-union workers
November 9, 2023 // Starbucks said it is also shortening the time hourly employees must work before accruing vacation days from one year to 90 days. That benefit is also only available to workers at non-unionized stores. The company also announced a new North American barista championship open to employees in the U.S. and Canada. The company said program also won't be available to employees at unionized stores since it involves prize money and travel. Starbucks’ actions go against a September ruling by an administrative law judge for the NLRB, who ruled that the company acted illegally last fall when it raised pay only for non-union workers. Starbucks has appealed that ruling, saying NLRB’s standards don’t allow employers to make unilateral changes in the wages or benefits of unionized employees.
Starbucks union organizer testified before Congress without disclosing she was paid nearly $50K
May 23, 2023 // Michelle Eisen, who spoke at a hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee in September, was paid $49,734 by the Service Employees International Union affiliate in 2022, according to the group’s annual report. But in a Sept. 14 disclosure form Eisen filled out to accompany her testimony, she claimed she was representing just herself as a barista. Lying to Congress, including on a disclosure form, is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, though such cases are rarely prosecuted. “I only recently found out that Ms. Eisen was a paid, Big Labor operative, which she should have disclosed before she testified at the Committee hearing if she was, in fact, being paid at the same time as her testimony,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) told The Post Monday. Eisen’s concealment may have been part of a wider effort by the labor group to “salt” the workplace with employees who planned to push Starbucks into its first successful unionization at a store in Buffalo. Eisen worked at the first-ever unionized Starbucks, and Workers United sent at least ten other baristas into Buffalo area franchises in the lead-up to the organizing campaign, Bloomberg reported. The report found one of those Workers United organizers tried to build trust with his hiring manager by saying he would blab about any of his fellow employees who complained about workplace conditions. Will Westlake, the organizer, also took upon himself the most menial tasks in order to gain trust from his employer, such as cleaning hard-to-reach areas.
Virginia is battleground in baristas’ organizing fight
April 18, 2023 // The biggest morale boost for Richmond Starbucks barista Tyler Hofmann is when customers make up names like “union solidarity” to identify their orders. “It gets printed out and [employees] have to call out union stuff in the café,” he said. That opens up an opportunity for discussion about workers’ ongoing grievances against the specialty coffee giant. Hofmann is working at Starbucks again after having been fired last May in what his union and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) claimed was illegal retaliation for his organizing efforts at the Richmond store. A private settlement was reached between the company and the regional board of the Workers United union, according to the NLRB, and Hofmann was reinstated.