Posts tagged paid organizer
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.