Posts tagged Ithaca
Starbucks Union: College Students Use Billboards, Leafleting in Solidarity Action
September 18, 2023 // Today, inspired in part by the recent developments at Cornell, 11 university campuses are unveiling solidarity billboards that criticize Starbucks’ union-busting tactics, which are so copious, the NLRB, according to the Guardian, has brought over 100 cases against the company — though it cannot hold the company accountable with fines or other punitive mechanisms. (Starbucks told Bloomberg it plans to appeal the NLRB ruling in Ithaca.) Students on those 11 campuses, including the University of Arizona, the University of Washington, and the University of Chicago, will spend today leafleting outside local Starbucks locations to support workers’ unionization efforts. “Students prefer our coffee union-brewed," reads one of the billboards. "We support Starbucks baristas & demand an end to Starbucks' union-busting.”
Will Starbucks’ union-busting stifle a union rebirth in the US?
August 28, 2023 // Many baristas say one Starbucks strategy in particular has discouraged workers from unionizing. In May 2022, Schultz announced that Starbucks would give certain raises and benefits to workers at its more than 9,000 non-union stores, but not offer those raises and benefits to its unionized workers. Starbucks insists it would be illegal to impose any raises or benefits on its unionized stores without first negotiating about them, but the NLRB’s general counsel asserts that this policy constitutes unlawful discrimination against Starbucks’ unionized workers. Under this policy, Starbucks has given its non-union workers, but not its unionized ones, a more relaxed dress code, increased training, faster sick leave accrual and, most important, credit card tipping. (Workers at the first few Starbucks stores to unionize had asked early on for credit card tipping.)
Cornell to Stop Serving Starbucks Coffee After Company Shut Down Unionized Cafes
August 21, 2023 // In May, Starbucks Corp. announced it would close its last two unionized corporate-run cafés in Cornell’s hometown of Ithaca, New York. It had previously shuttered the other location that organized. In response, Cornell’s student government passed a resolution, and activists staged a sit-in demanding that the university cease serving Starbucks coffee at its own cafés in response to the alleged union-busting. “Cornell Dining does not intend to serve Starbucks Coffee in its café venues after the current agreement with the company expires in 2025,” the school’s vice president for university relations, Joel Malina, said in an email. The university will instead consult with the student government on an “inclusive process” to transition to a new vendor.
Starbucks must reopen College Avenue cafe, rehire workers, NLRB judge orders
July 10, 2023 // “Over the last eight months, we’ve had more than 900 partner absences,” the Starbucks representative told 14850 Today regarding the decision to close both remaining cafes this spring. “These stores have also seen a significant amount of partner turnover—more than triple our national store average. Further, we have been unable to retain partners in critical store manager and assistant store manager positions, and we have been unable to find the talent we need to fill these positions.”
Starbucks closures in Ithaca fuel union-busting claims
June 28, 2023 // NLRB…
College Students Are Urging Their Schools Dump Starbucks Coffee Over Shutdowns of Unionized Cafes
May 12, 2023 // Pro-labor sit-in protest demands Cornell find a new vendor Closures are part of its store-fleet evaluation, company says Cornell’s Student Assembly ,
A Workplace Divided: Bangs Ambulance Workers United and the Fight for Unionization
November 16, 2022 // When employees at Ithaca’s only ambulance company officially began the unionization process, they were looking for better shift scheduling, protocols, benefits, pay and a 40-hour work week, among other goals tailored toward improving patient care, employee safety and work-life balance. Now, after narrowly winning the Nov. 9 union vote by 22-20, Bangs Ambulance employees face an uphill battle: they must unify the workforce and attempt to improve their working conditions, while also strengthening the new union.
Workers protest Starbucks’ plan to close a unionizing store
June 10, 2022 // Starbucks told workers last Friday it plans to permanently close their store — one of three in Ithaca — on June 10. Starbucks cited facilities issues and staffing problems that have plagued the store. But Workers United, the union that represents Starbucks workers nationwide, says the coffee giant is retaliating against the store for its labor activism. Risa Lieberwitz, The Worker Institute at Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations,
The year workers said ‘no’
May 16, 2022 // Signs of "waking up" don't always involve unionizing. Some workers are purposefully decreasing their productivity, known as a "slow up" in pursuit of better work-life balance.