Standing up to Starbucks

[Omaha Steve]

http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/17/standing-up-to-starbucks

Adam Turl talks to barista and union organizer Erik Forman about the campaign to organize Starbucks.

April 17, 2009

WHEN BANK of America hosted a conference call to discuss how to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act, one executive used a new formulation: "the Starbucks problem."

His worry: workers might follow the example of Starbucks baristas and form their own unions without waiting for bigger "traditional" unions to organize them.

In the past five years, the Starbucks Workers Union (SWU)--a part of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)--has spread from one Manhattan store to win hundreds of members in New York City, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Grand Rapids, Chicago and beyond.

The SWU has made inroads among a section of the workforce--low-wage retail workers--that many unions have written off as too difficult to organize. Indeed, organized labor represents just 5 percent of workers in retail.

Since its formation, the SWU has won a series of important National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rulings and achieved gains for baristas on the job. Given the dire straits workers face today, if Corporate America is worried about the "Starbucks problem," then union members and supporters should take a close look at the SWU.

FULL story and photo at link.

[northzax]

1. There's also an important corrolary here

Full disclosure, I am a starbucks 'partner' but have no connection to management save that they sign my paychecks.

The corrolary is to have management treat employees with something approaching respect. I know quite a few people who have gotten back on their feet working at starbucks, it's not ideal, of course, but it's certainly not the worst place I have worked, by a longshot.