Posts tagged Starbucks Workers United
Starbucks union to greet new CEO Narasimhan with 100-cafe strike
March 22, 2023 // Unionized Starbucks Corp. baristas plan to welcome their new chief executive officer with strikes at about 100 cafes Wednesday, demanding that the company drop its alleged anti-union coercion. Striking baristas from Oregon and Washington state plan to converge for a midday protest outside Starbucks headquarters in Seattle. The work stoppage, which organizers said will involve stores in more than 40 US cities, is the union Starbucks Workers United’s latest effort to force a pivot by the coffee giant.
Starbucks CEO to testify before Senate over opposition to stores unionizing
March 8, 2023 // Starbucks initially pushed back on efforts to compel Schultz to testify before the US Senate Help committee, offering other Starbucks executives in lieu of Schultz. Sanders criticized Starbucks’ response. Starbucks Workers United has called out Schultz on social media, using a #DearHoward hashtag to criticize how Starbucks has responded to unionization efforts and its impact on workers in anticipation of the Senate testimony.
Starbucks workers contend company is busting unions. ‘This will be a priority for me,’ congressman says.
February 21, 2023 // Since then, the congressman’s staff has been in touch with the company, whose representatives have told them that Starbucks is allowing workers to exercise their rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Khanna told the employees on Friday that he has corresponded with new Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan and expects to meet with him after he takes over April 1. “I’m hopeful that between the approach to him and the approach to some of the board members, who I know, that they may see the light — allowing for reasonable unionization and reasonable terms,” Khanna said. He mentioned that Microsoft Corp. MSFT, -2.29% last year came to a neutrality agreement with the Communications Workers of America; Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is a Starbucks board member.
Starbucks could be forced to bargain with workers who rejected union
January 25, 2023 // A U.S. labor board official is seeking a rare order requiring Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) to collectively bargain with workers at a Florida store, even after they voted against unionizing by a nearly two-to-one margin. The regional director of the National Labor Relations Board's Tampa, Florida office filed a complaint on Tuesday claiming unlawful threats, retaliation and surveillance by Starbucks managers were so severe that holding a new election at the store would be futile.
Baristas Form First Unionized Peet’s Coffee in US With Help From Starbucks Workers
January 25, 2023 // SBWU organizer Tyler Keeling from Lakewood, California played an instrumental role in PWU's efforts, as detailed last week in Jacobin. PWU expressed gratitude to Keeling before and after the union vote.
Labor unions expand into legislator offices
January 23, 2023 // “Unionizing staffers in legislative offices makes no sense because it creates more problems than it solves,” says Brigette Herbst, senior organizing director for AFFT and a former state legislative staffer, “How does unionization work with the long and unpredictable hours during a legislative session? How will elected officials handle untrustworthy staffers? Union organizers haven’t answered these important questions.” Labor unions have also turned their focus to legislative staffers at the state level.
Big Labor’s Astroturfed Unionization of Starbucks
January 10, 2023 // It’s unclear the degree to which the Starbucks campaign has featured salts, but Brisack isn’t the only one. Articles in union and socialist publications Jacobin, In These Times, and Labor Notes all reference the organizing role played by employees who “consciously took jobs at Starbucks to organize.” Outside the workplace, Workers United also funded an array of consultants, organizers, and attorneys to support the campaign. When organizing her co-workers, Brisack would introduce them to professional organizers such as Bensinger “to show the baristas that she had a real union backing her,” according to the Washington Post.
Chicago saw a wave of new unions form in 2022. Getting to the bargaining table is the next challenge.
January 2, 2023 // But it’s not just Starbucks: In Chicago, museum workers at the Art Institute, faculty and staff members at its affiliated school and employees at the Newberry Library have all unionized this year. So have workers at Howard Brown Health, budtenders at Zen Leaf cannabis dispensaries and booksellers at Half Price Books in Niles. Baristas at four La Colombe Coffee Roaster locations filed for union elections in December. Thousands of graduate students at Northwestern and the University of Chicago filed petitions within two weeks of each other in November. For the hundreds of newly unionized workers in Chicago, the hard work has only just begun; now they must negotiate a first contract with their employers. Labor leaders see a contract as the gold standard for protecting workers’ rights and securing gains in areas like pay and benefits. But the process can take years.
Workers at Starbucks-Amazon store reject union membership
December 22, 2022 // The workers, who legally work for Starbucks, requested a union election because they said the tie-up between the coffee chain and Amazon.com. doubled their workload with no additional pay. The vote was very close, with 13 voting to join Starbucks Workers United, and 14 voting no, according to a spokesperson for the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees union elections.
Starbucks union turns up pressure with strikes, gift card boycott
December 20, 2022 // On Dec. 14, the union announced a campaign to persuade customers not to buy gift cards this year. Unused gift cards and money loaded onto the Starbucks app boost the company’s profitability — funds accounted for $196 million in revenue for Starbucks in the last year, according to Starbucks’ 10-K. The combination of a targeted product boycott and multi-day strikes at stores across the country constitutes a strategic escalation by the union to push Starbucks toward the bargaining table, workers and labor experts say.