Thousands of unionized Starbucks workers will walk off their jobs on Thursday, with the one-day work stoppages coming to protest the company’s stance with shops that voted to organize, according to Starbucks Workers United.
The labor action is timed to for Starbucks’ Red Cup Day, an annual event in which the coffee giant hands out holiday-themed reusable cups. Starbucks has refused to negotiate in good faith over staffing and other issues that are particularly acute during promotions, according to the union.
“Starbucks is creating unnecessarily stressful working conditions by scheduling promotion after promotion without increasing staffing,” Neha Cremin, a Starbucks worker in Oklahoma City, said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch. “Starbucks has made it clear that they won’t listen to workers, so we’re advocating for ourselves by going on strike.”
One of the first shops to unionize was on Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan. Starbucks recently announced a number of closings and surprisingly enough, that shop is one of the stores being closed. Corporate swears the closing has nothing to do with the union.
Apparently a shop operating successfully for over 20 years in a high visibility, heavy foot trafficked area of a college town is just a recipe for failure.
It’s so frustrating that such blatant union busting goes unpunished. If I had any power, I’d see execs in charge of decisions like that go to jail. Not a fine – jail. White collar crime is one area where I think prison actually can be a decent deterrent (if there’s enough enforcement that people don’t think they’d go uncaught). It’s a crime where the perpetrator usually is knowledgeable, not in the heat of the moment, and has plenty of time to recognize what they’re doing.
Nah, I’m okay with this type of union busting, even as a fully paid union member. Yeah, those staff are out of a job, but with the help of the union they’re a member of, they’ll find another job pretty quickly. Especially in this example as the union will consider it a win and want to capitalise on the free promotion. One less location trying to screw their staff is a win in my book too.
Aren’t the Starbucks unions effectively just relevant to Starbucks, so if they closed all the unionized stores, the union wouldn’t have anywhere to place them.
Or are Starbucks unions part of a larger union?
That’s the great thing about unions, they are all intertwined and will support each other. I can’t remember which country it is, but there’s a current furore going on in Europe with Tesla workers. Dockworkers etc have stepped up and are supporting them in their strike by doing a go slow on Tesla imports etc. Similar things have happened in the past too. Say steelworkers go on strike. If shit is bad enough, you’ll have members of the coal workers union, mining union etc also do their bit to help screw the company screwing the steelworkers with the aim of getting a proper resolution for the steelworkers. That’s why you should join a union. They don’t just advocate for proper conditions for just you and your fellow union members in your industry, they advocate for proper conditions for all workers in your industry, as well as workers in other industries, regardless of if they’re members or not (although, obviously, you will get way more support if you are a union member).