Starbucks and Amazon are running parallel union-busting campaigns across the country, willfully violating labor law in a desperate attempt to defeat nascent worker organizing in their companies.
The union-busting campaign carried out by Starbucks indicates that the company will not stop until they destroy Starbucks Workers United. The rest of the labor movement has a duty to support the Starbucks union drive — before it’s too late.
Starbucks workers in Buffalo, New York, were the first in the country to vote to form a union. But an underfunded Labor Board meant that labor law went unenforced in Buffalo during their elections.
The union drive at a Starbucks in Calgary, Alberta, was defeated by both the anti-union tactics of the company and the province’s ruling party. Successful votes elsewhere, however, indicate the Starbucks unionization wave is only just beginning in Canada.
Starbucks has been charged by the National Labor Relations Board with retaliation against two supporters of a unionization drive in Phoenix. We spoke with one of them about her experience at Starbucks and her mission to help all food industry workers unionize.
A year ago today, Starbucks workers in Buffalo, New York, voted to unionize. Since then the campaign has exploded nationwide, with an impressive 267 Starbucks locations now unionized.
The unionization efforts of Starbucks workers have the bosses scared, Seattle socialist city councilor Kshama Sawant writes. Coffee workers should heed lessons from labor history and take a class-struggle approach to organizing.
A Starbucks location in Calgary awaiting its ballot results may prove to be the spear tip of a Canadian answer to the labor surge of its US counterparts. The longtime union-busting company may find itself on the receiving end of an emboldened workforce.
How bad has Starbucks’ union busting gotten? The company is accusing workers at a South Carolina store of kidnapping their boss. We spoke with one worker about the absurd charges and how they unanimously won their union vote in a notoriously anti-labor state.
Starbucks is firing worker activists as it seeks to blunt the momentum of the union drive sweeping the company. Jacobin spoke to worker Laila Dalton, who was fired just weeks after the NLRB issued a complaint against Starbucks for retaliating against her.
Starbucks workers at 65 stores in 40 cities across the US walked out Thursday, striking against what they describe as unfair labor practices and the company’s stonewalling at the bargaining table. The strike could spread to as many as 550 stores.
In response to Starbucks’ union-busting in Memphis, firing seven workers who were organizing a union there, the American labor movement should organize protests at Starbucks locations throughout the country. The coffee giant can’t get away with this.
As contract negotiations with the company stall, unionized Starbucks workers at dozens of stores are preparing for a potential strike. Workers are now holding practice pickets and signing customers up to boycott the coffee giant in the event of a walkout.
The only unionized Starbucks location in Canada is being excluded from a company-wide pay increase. Why? Because the raise is “not in the workers’ union contract.” The company has hit peak petulance just in time for more unionization bids.
In what workers say is another example of its shameless union-busting campaign, Starbucks fired Joselyn Chuquillanqui last month after trying to organize her New York store. We spoke to her about her firing and why she’s not giving up the fight to unionize.
By preventing centralized bargaining, existing labor laws make Starbucks organizing an uphill battle. A short-lived law from 1990s Ontario points to how incremental store-by-store wins could be transformed into more powerful, broader-based bargaining.
This Labor Day, the overall situation for US labor remains bleak. Yet the Starbucks union campaign has spread across hundreds of stores, offering a model for other unions. In tough times, Starbucks workers are giving hope to the labor movement.
The historic union victories at Amazon and Starbucks have shattered any illusions that corporate giants are invincible to labor organizing. Let's make Amazon and Starbucks the start of a massive wave of unionization.
Starbucks workers are unionizing at a breakneck pace. We ran the numbers and found that more than 2,000 Starbucks workers are now unionized — and that number will likely triple in the coming months.
Starbucks has carried out a vicious national union-busting campaign, but Starbucks workers have responded with strikes across the country. We spoke to a Chicago barista about why she and her coworkers have walked off the job.