A Dummy's Guide To Unionizing Starbucks
Although I'd prefer to say, "Avoid this place as it represents everything perfectly nasty about corporate control," I suppose that by unionizing Starbucks it might set some sort of standard which might slowly provoke some change. So listen up:
Two days after workers at the 36th and Madison Starbucks in New York City turned in their union cards to the NLRB for a certification election, Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, sent them a little voice message. In this dispatch from the corporate tower, Schultz--who personally brought in 17 million dollars last year--tried to appeal to the $7.75 per-hour upstarts in words that would impress George Orwell. The multi-millionaire CEO began his message by referring to his poverty-wage employees as "partners", and stressed how Starbucks and its workers "have built great trust in one another." He went on to explain that he viewed "treating everyone with dignity and respect as our highest priority", and stressed the "caring and supportive culture" of the company. He ended with this note of pure authenticity: "I want to conclude by simply thanking you for everything you do each day, and for being the real heart and soul of Starbucks."
Not surprisingly, the workers saw right through this corporate textbook mumbo-jumbo. Their experience had taught them better. Their story and their ongoing struggle for the first unionized Starbucks locale of the more than 4,000 Starbucks in the United States is vitally important and in need of our support.
It started when one worker, a young man in his twenties named Daniel Gross, was getting fed up with the work situation of him and his fellow workers. The cost of living in New York City is extremely high, and Starbucks pays a starting wage of $7.75 (Gross had worked there long enough to get a raise up to $8.09, hardly a significant change.) Furthermore, work hours are inconsistent from week-to-week,
and a forty-hour workweek is not at all guaranteed. The long hours of working behind an understaffed counter, standing up, bending down, and handling extremely hot liquids, was also a pressing concern.
When these grievances went unheeded by management, Gross turned to organizing his fellow baristas into a union. Though he earned the anger of the management, he won over his workmates. On May 17th, the Starbucks Workers Union, IWW IU/660, filed for a union certification election.
Check out their site: http://www.starbucksunion.org
What can you do?
1. Contact Starbuck's CEO Howard Schultz at hschultz@starbucks.com and call Starbucks at 800-235-2883 to express your support for the Union.
2. Give a piece of your mind to the corporate lawyers of the Akin Gump firm that Starbucks hired to deny the workers their right to form a union as they choose. Contact DANIEL L. NASH, Partner, Robert S. Strauss Building, 1333 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20036, Telephone: 202-887-4067, Fax: 202-955-779, Email: dnash@akingump.com.
And contact GREGORY W. KNOPP, Counsel, Mail -- 590 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10022, Telephone: 212-872-1052, Fax: 212-872-1002, Email: gknopp@akingump.com
3. Tell the managers at your local store that you support the right of Baristas to organize. Print out the flyer on the union's website here and pass it out at your local Starbucks. Let the workers know about the union effort.
4. Organize a rally outside of a Starbucks in support of the NYC workers. You can print out a fact sheet here to pass out to customers.
For more on unionizing attempts of Starbucks, and other meaningful causes, visit http://www.mcspotlight.org
Two days after workers at the 36th and Madison Starbucks in New York City turned in their union cards to the NLRB for a certification election, Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, sent them a little voice message. In this dispatch from the corporate tower, Schultz--who personally brought in 17 million dollars last year--tried to appeal to the $7.75 per-hour upstarts in words that would impress George Orwell. The multi-millionaire CEO began his message by referring to his poverty-wage employees as "partners", and stressed how Starbucks and its workers "have built great trust in one another." He went on to explain that he viewed "treating everyone with dignity and respect as our highest priority", and stressed the "caring and supportive culture" of the company. He ended with this note of pure authenticity: "I want to conclude by simply thanking you for everything you do each day, and for being the real heart and soul of Starbucks."
Not surprisingly, the workers saw right through this corporate textbook mumbo-jumbo. Their experience had taught them better. Their story and their ongoing struggle for the first unionized Starbucks locale of the more than 4,000 Starbucks in the United States is vitally important and in need of our support.
It started when one worker, a young man in his twenties named Daniel Gross, was getting fed up with the work situation of him and his fellow workers. The cost of living in New York City is extremely high, and Starbucks pays a starting wage of $7.75 (Gross had worked there long enough to get a raise up to $8.09, hardly a significant change.) Furthermore, work hours are inconsistent from week-to-week,
and a forty-hour workweek is not at all guaranteed. The long hours of working behind an understaffed counter, standing up, bending down, and handling extremely hot liquids, was also a pressing concern.
When these grievances went unheeded by management, Gross turned to organizing his fellow baristas into a union. Though he earned the anger of the management, he won over his workmates. On May 17th, the Starbucks Workers Union, IWW IU/660, filed for a union certification election.
Check out their site: http://www.starbucksunion.org
What can you do?
1. Contact Starbuck's CEO Howard Schultz at hschultz@starbucks.com and call Starbucks at 800-235-2883 to express your support for the Union.
2. Give a piece of your mind to the corporate lawyers of the Akin Gump firm that Starbucks hired to deny the workers their right to form a union as they choose. Contact DANIEL L. NASH, Partner, Robert S. Strauss Building, 1333 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20036, Telephone: 202-887-4067, Fax: 202-955-779, Email: dnash@akingump.com.
And contact GREGORY W. KNOPP, Counsel, Mail -- 590 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10022, Telephone: 212-872-1052, Fax: 212-872-1002, Email: gknopp@akingump.com
3. Tell the managers at your local store that you support the right of Baristas to organize. Print out the flyer on the union's website here and pass it out at your local Starbucks. Let the workers know about the union effort.
4. Organize a rally outside of a Starbucks in support of the NYC workers. You can print out a fact sheet here to pass out to customers.
For more on unionizing attempts of Starbucks, and other meaningful causes, visit http://www.mcspotlight.org
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