Posts tagged Michelle Eisen
House GOP probes union over Starbucks barista who kept labor ties from Congress
July 17, 2023 // Eisen, who represented herself to lawmakers only as a Starbucks worker, disclosed in a labor organization form that she was paid $49,734 by the Service Employees International Union affiliate in 2022, The Post exclusively revealed in May. “On her Truth in Testimony form, Ms. Eisen represented herself exclusively as a Starbucks barista,” Foxx wrote to Workers United International President Lynne Fox. “Members of the Committee and public observers would have benefitted from knowing whether Workers United was paying Ms. Eisen as an organizer at the time of the hearing.”
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.
Opinion: Can Unions Still Transform the Workplace?
August 18, 2022 // Starbucks workers across Buffalo created a citywide account on the GroupMe app, which enabled them to track corporate executives as they moved from café to café—and alert one another to be prepared. “What you’re seeing is organizing evolving with the times,” Eisen says. Soon after the successful union vote at her store, Eisen hopped on a Zoom call with workers at a Starbucks café in Mesa, Arizona, to share what she had learned with her counterparts on the other side of the nation. Bill Fletcher Jr, geriatric millennial, Shaun Richman, Jane McAlevey, people of color,
Starbucks workers in Buffalo vote to unionize, first company-owned store in U.S. with union
December 9, 2021 // Another location voted against unionizing, and the final vote at a third cafe was delayed after seven ballots were challenged.
STARBUCKS EMPLOYEES LOOK BEYOND AN EXPECTED UNION WIN
December 1, 2021 // She and other members of the Starbucks Workers Union’s organizing committee indicated that they’re already fielding queries about organizing from other Starbucks units, particularly a store in Mesa, Ariz., that’s already filed a federal request to hold a vote on unionizing.