By Mark Gruenberg
SEATTLE—After a 98%-2% strike authorization vote several days before, 10,000 Starbucks workers nationwide struck the coffee chain giant on the morning of December 20. The strike will run through Christmas Eve.
Picket lines went up at a Starbucks store in its headquarters city of Seattle, at another store in Los Angeles and a third one on Chicago’s North Side. Others are expected to follow.
The Starbucks strike is more evidence that underpaid, overworked, stressed-out and exploited workers, many of them young, female, people of color or all of the above, have had it up to here with corporate capitalist greed grabbing the profits they bring in, leaving them pennies.
So they’ve unionized, walked or walked out for other jobs, or a combination of the three.
Another exploited group, Amazon workers, went out on picket lines days before. The Starbucks workers said they stand in solidarity with that group and intend to join each other’s picket lines.
The straw that finally drove the workers to walk was when Starbucks, in its latest bargaining session with the workers, finally proposed a pay increase: 2%.
“That works out to about 35 cents. I don’t know what you can get for 35 cents. Maybe some bubble gum,” negotiator Jasmine Leli, of the first store to unionize, in Buffalo, N.Y., three years ago, told the crowd of hundreds, meeting in Seattle.
“We didn’t know what it”—the company’s offer—“was going to look like coming into the last bargaining session,” added Philadelphia worker Sylvia Baldwin. “We were hoping it would give us something that would lead us to settle.”
It didn’t, “so we decided to pull the trigger.”
Other key issues at Starbucks are erratic hours which often deprive baristas of benefits, company favoritism and often bad working conditions. Managers, following company dictates, also demand “efficiency” in service with time limits so short on preparing coffees as to be unachievable.
Another issue is Starbucks’s rampant national labor law-breaking, ordered by Starbucks founder, chief stockholder and former CEO Howard Schultz. One Seattle speaker said when current CEO Brian Niccol, the former CEO of Chipotle, ascended earlier this year, “the atmosphere in the bargaining room noticeably cooled.”
Schultz and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, one of the three richest people in the U.S. have both gotten wealthy from their workers, though they’ve stepped away from daily control.
Both are also notorious union haters. A National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge has convicted Schultz, personally, of labor law-breaking, formally called unfair labor practices, for implicitly threatening to fire a California barista because she challenged him at a “town hall.”
“Starbucks and Amazon are two of the most-notorious union-busters on the planet,” one barista in the Seattle meeting said.
A legal victory too
The strike and the workers’ win at the Seattle flagship store joined a legal victory, from the NLRB.
The full NLRB found Albany, N.Y., Starbucks District Manager Beate Kuhnle-Hambster illegally quizzed union activist James Schenk, illegally “created the impression of surveillance” via screenshots of his private group chat messages and eventually illegally fired him because he’s pro-union.
“Failing to disclose sources of information about protected activities unlawfully suggests employer monitoring,” the board said.
The board ordered full back pay–including payment of debts he ran up on credit cards and medical bills after being illegally fired—for Schenk.
In keeping with the democratic nature of their grass-roots union, hundreds of Starbucks workers attended the mass meeting and at least a thousand more watched on zoom. Bargaining team members briefed the crowd and announced the start of the strike, which was greeted with cheers.
The workers are also taking their cause public and not just in picket lines.
“Corporate is refusing to agree to any real raises for workers while dragging their feet on bargaining and resolving hundreds of unfair labor practice charges related to their union-busting,” Buffalo barista and union bargainer Michelle Eisen e-mailed to supporters.
“I’m only getting a 61-cent raise. Meanwhile, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol’s compensation package equals $57,000 per hour. When I’m at work, I’m on my feet, making drinks and selling the gift cards that fund his lifestyle.
“The company’s in trouble. I know that because I see it at work every day. Meanwhile, Brian Niccol is working from a company-paid private jet. Starbucks’ turnaround depends on baristas.”
“It was insulting to hear what Starbucks thinks we are worth. Average raises of just 30 to 50 cents an hour aren’t enough to help us get by. If they are interested in respecting workers like me, they need to show up to the bargaining table with a fair proposal.”
Eisen asked supporters to “show solidarity” with the workers by e-mailing Niccol demanding the monster coffee chain bargain in good faith.
Until he does, Eisen added, “We’ll be out on the picket line.”