John Logan is professor and director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University.
It’s not just Starbucks anymore: workers at two California Peet’s Coffee stores announced their intention to unionize. The worker-driven model at the heart of Starbucks Workers United is spreading.
Starbucks workers are up against stiff odds as their company blatantly tries to destroy organizing efforts. But given the momentum the workers have built through hundreds of union wins, no one should count the Starbucks union out yet.
Reading the Washington Post’s recent profile of Howard Schultz, you might be convinced of the Starbucks CEO’s benevolent, liberal image. But his unrelenting drive to smash the Starbucks union shows he’s no different from any other greedy corporate leader.
The National Labor Relations Board has repeatedly ruled that Starbucks and Amazon’s union busting is against the law. Yet both companies seem intent on continuing to flagrantly break labor law in the hopes of breaking their fledgling unions.
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.
It’s not enough for Starbucks to carry out a scorched-earth campaign to destroy workers’ union organizing campaign. The company is now implementing Trump-like attacks on the legitimacy of union elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.
The surprise union victories at Starbucks in recent months were an inspiration to millions around the United States. But Starbucks is now pulling out all the stops to engage in one of the most flagrant union-busting campaigns in recent memory.
In response to the tidal wave of unionization at cafés, Starbucks has engaged in a scorched-earth union-busting campaign across the country. The situation is extremely dire — and the Biden administration is not doing anywhere near enough to stop it.
Starbucks and its union-busting law firm are pulling out all the stops in Seattle in an attempt to destroy the union push that has swept the country.
No one would have guessed that Starbucks Workers United would rack up a hundred union victories in less than a year, but it has. Lessons from five early victories show how workers organizing at Starbucks — and everywhere else — can keep that momentum going.
No company in America is busting unions as shamelessly as Starbucks is right now. President Joe Biden and his labor board could put a stop to it — if they choose to.