Posts tagged Starbucks Workers United
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.
Starbucks workers at 100 stores are planning three-day strike starting on Friday amid union push
December 16, 2022 // Starbucks workers around the U.S. are planning a three-day strike starting Friday as part of their effort to unionize the coffee chain’s stores. More than 1,000 baristas at 100 stores are planning to walk out, according to Starbucks Workers United, the labor group organizing the effort. The strike will be the longest in the year-old unionization campaign. This is the second major strike in a month by Starbucks’ U.S. workers. On Nov. 17, workers at 110 Starbucks stores held a one-day walkout. That effort coincided with Starbucks’ annual Red Cup Day, when the company gives reusable cups to customers who order a holiday drink.
Major rally planned in Courthouse to support of unionized Starbucks employees
December 8, 2022 // A major rally is being planned for later this week in front of the county government headquarters, in a show of solidarity with recently-unionized Starbucks employees. The president of the AFL-CIO and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) are both expected to attend, among others. The rally is one of ten across the county, organized as part of a National Day of Action by Starbucks Workers United. It’s set for this Friday, Dec. 9, at 5 p.m. outside of the Bozman Government Center at 2100 Clarendon Blvd.
After right-to-work’s anniversary in Arkansas, Fayetteville Starbucks becomes the state’s first location to unioniz
December 1, 2022 // Arkansas' right-to-work law turned 78-years-old on Nov. 7, and a little over a week after its anniversary, a Fayetteville Starbucks became the first location in the state to unionize. Although right-to-work effects how unions function, other factors like deindustrialization impacted the state's labor movement.
New service union seeks to inspire labor movement in South
November 22, 2022 // Organizers of USSW seek to supplement, rather than compete with, existing movements like Starbucks Workers United. The group will join the nearly 2 million members of the Service Employees International Union, and its demands include better pay, fair grievance processes, safe workplaces, health care benefits and consistent scheduling.
Where Six Louisville Unionization Efforts Stand
November 17, 2022 // While there has been a boom in unionization efforts in Louisville, there has also been, for the most part, pushback from employers, who have largely demanded employees vote rather than voluntarily recognize unions.
The Starbucks union’s contract fight is a race against time
November 13, 2022 // Organizers face slowing new election rates, accusations of bad-faith bargaining and an impending loss of decertification protection.