Posts tagged Strategic Organizing Center
Michael Watson: Big ESG’s Big Partner: Big Labor
April 20, 2025 // Unions’ principal interest in the ESG activism movement is on the “S” or “social” prong of the acronym. Both unions themselves, like the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and critics of unions, like the Institute for the American Worker, will argue that Big Labor views ESG as a category for advancing union organizing and other core union priorities. Proxy Preview shows unions and union-aligned groups (like city and state pension funds and the largely union-owned and union-controlled Amalgamated Bank) pushing shareholder resolutions demanding that companies “adopt a noninterference policy respecting freedom of association” or “respect for freedom of association and collective bargaining”—euphemisms for neutrality in union organizing. Under a neutrality agreement, the employer agrees not to present its views on the potential consequences of union organizing to employees, and it may agree not to confirm union majority support by a government-supervised secret-ballot election, instead using public union-card signatures (known as “card check”).
The Growing Distance Between Unions and Union Workers
April 5, 2024 // In theory, a thriving labor movement aims at deploying such coup-style strategies after winning the favor of the workers that spearhead its success. But this is the direct opposite of what’s happening today. Rather than being buoyed by the wave of employees flooding its ranks, the labor movement is instead hemorrhaging members and attempting to forge ahead by pushing against the current of worker sentiment. Unions’ numbers are dwindling. Grassroots tactics are withering. The workers of the world just aren’t uniting the way that unions would like. The solution, for today’s unions, is to invert their playbook, putting corporate and regulatory capture ahead of the will of the worker. Instead of galvanizing worker sentiment to move policy and manage proxies, major unions have taken to exploiting regulations in order to drag employees along from the comfort of the director’s chair. But by winning a seat on the Starbucks board, each of the SOC’s nominees would have had to confront an ugly choice: Make decisions that favor union density at the expense of worker autonomy and shareholder value; or own up to the damage that coercive organizing tactics have done to the corporation’s and employees’ interests. They were smart to withdraw their bid.
Labor unions end proxy fight at Starbucks after bargaining progress
March 8, 2024 // A group of labor unions said on Tuesday that it was ending its proxy fight at Starbucks, after the two sides agreed last week to work toward a "foundational framework" on collective bargaining. "We feel that now is the time to acknowledge the progress that has been made and to allow the Company and its workers to focus on moving forward," the Strategic Organizing Center said in a release. The SOC said it is withdrawing the three nominees it had put forth for election to Starbucks' board.
Starbucks proxy war shows Big Labor’s new tactic
February 23, 2024 // Crucially, the new SEC rule allows the SOC to push for huge changes to the Starbucks board with comparatively little skin in the game. Starbucks has a market capitalization of $105 billion. The SOC owns 161 shares of Starbucks, a stake worth approximately $16,000. Thanks to the universal proxy rule, the SOC can use Starbucks’s own proxy materials to promote its hostile takeover attempt without bearing the costs of its own solicitation. The Starbucks proxy fight is one part of SOC’s broader scheme to impose Big Labor’s agenda on every publicly traded American company. The SOC’s coalition includes some of the most militant and disruptive unions in the country: the Service Employees International Union, Communications Workers of America, and the United Farmworkers of America. These unions regularly engage in strikes, protests, boycotts, litigation, and other tactics to bend workers and employers alike to their will.
Starbucks proposes restarting union talks, reaching labor deals in major reversal
December 11, 2023 // The company may also be trying to head off an effort by the Strategic Organizing Center, a labor group, to elect three pro-union candidates to Starbucks’ board of directors next year.
Union of Southern Service Workers rallies at Labor Department to protest unsafe work conditions, deliver complaint
April 6, 2023 // The new Union of Southern Service Workers and affiliated workers staged a rally outside the U.S. Department of Labor’s downtown Atlanta office on Tuesday to demand stronger workplace protections and federal enforcement of safety regulations. About 50 USSW organizers and workers from Family Dollar, Waffle House and other companies converged on the Department of Labor’s office at 61 Forsyth St., before marching to Centennial Park.