Last year, workers at two Starbucks coffee stores in Buffalo, New York voted to form a union, the first in the nation. Starbucks, the largest coffeehouse chain in the world had fought the union drive and lost. Since then, baristas at more than 220 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize, representing some 5,000 workers.
But Starbucks has taken an aggressive stand against the union juggernaut, betraying the carefully crafted image of the company as a caring and progressive employer, upholding the values of social justice and equality. Now fully engaged in a crude union-busting campaign, the company has closed down pro-union stores, fired pro-union workers and denied raises to union members.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Jeff Schuhrke, assistant professor of labor studies at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies at the Empire State College in New York City. Here he talks about his recent Jacobin magazine article titled, “Starbucks is on a National Union-Busting Crime Spree,” and how the Starbucks Workers United union is fighting back.
JEFF SCHUHRKE: Because the campaign is so big and it keeps growing so rapidly, the company is using even harsher tactics than normal. So as you mentioned, yes, they fired, according to the union, over 80 pro-union workers as retaliation for supporting the union or for union activism, which is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act.
Besides firing people, they’ve disciplined them or cut their hours or other kinds of things, again, targeting them because of their union activism, which is also illegal.
And you mentioned they’ve closed a handful of stores that were pro-union or had already organized. Again, that’s something that’s illegal. And the company, I think it was Aug. 1st implemented, raises across all their stores, but they said only the stores that have voted to unionize will not get those raises, which is just kind of a discriminatory implementation of raises.
And so that’s also illegal. I think part of the problem here is that the labor law — National Labor Relations Act — and how it’s been interpreted by the courts over the years and some of the decisions from the National Labor Relations Board, which is the federal agency that enforces the law, have really kind of watered the law down. So it’s sort of toothless.
There aren’t really strong enforcement mechanisms. The law itself, there are no civil penalties that a company has to pay if they’ve violated the law. So if they’ve fired someone illegally, the only penalty — it’s not really a penalty — the only punishment that Starbucks faces is having to reinstate the workers and give them backpay.
SCOTT HARRIS: Jeff, what kind of support are the Starbucks workers who are caught in the crosshairs of this anti-union drive on the part of Starbucks — what kind of assistance is coming from the AFL-CIO and other major labor unions across the country who certainly have something at stake here in the outcome of this fight?
JEFF SCHUHRKE: You’re absolutely right. The established unions that are part of the AFL-CIO or also outside of the AFL-CIO have a real stake in seeing the success of the Starbucks campaign. And, you know, given the fact that the company is waging this really aggressive, illegal anti-union, union-busting campaign, the ultimate success of the campaign is somewhat in question. You know, they’re up against a major company that’s willing to do anything to stop them.
So it is, in my opinion, you know, incumbent on the established labor movement to do everything it can to support the workers at Starbucks. The union that they’re joining at Starbucks is an established union, Workers United, which is part of the SEIU, and they’ve gotten lots of support from them obviously, in terms of advice and organizing, as well as lawyers to help them, you know, when they get fired illegally, to have lawyers to help them to file charges with the National Labor Relations Board.
And really importantly, Workers United had started a strike fund of $1 million. And this is important because the workers, you know, to protest all this illegal union busting have been going on strike. There have been at least 60 strikes, I think, just this summer at different Starbucks stores across the country, usually lasting for a few days, although there’s one in Boston that’s been going on for over a month now.
And one of the biggest hangups for workers when they’re talking about maybe going on strike and one of the reasons why they often will not go on strike is because they’re obviously worried about losing their paycheck and they need their paycheck. So having a strike fund says if you go on strike, you’ll still get at least some money for the days that you’re not working by going on strike.
You know, this costs the company money because they don’t have workers and they have to close down and they’re losing revenues. So this is something that’s actually very effective in getting the company to stop breaking the law and actually come to the negotiating table and actually recognize the union and negotiate with it.
So something that established unions could be doing more of, in my opinion, is donating more money to the strike fund so that they can have more strikes, more work stoppages for longer periods of time and really, you know, hit Starbucks where it hurts in the pocketbook so that they’ll stop this illegal union-busting campaign.
SCOTT HARRIS: What are the ways listeners who are supportive of the union organizing drive at Starbucks support the workers? I know there was one thing in your article you talked about, which was the no-contract, no-coffee pledge.
JEFF SCHUHRKE: Yeah. So listeners can look up Starbucks Workers United online and you’ll see right there. There’s a thing called the no-contract, no coffee pledge. And if you put in your email address, they’ll send you email alerts. Or you can put in your phone number they’ll give you text message alerts about activities happening at your local Starbucks where you can go and support the workers, whether it’s joining them on the picket line if they’re on strike or other kinds of activities that they’re doing. And just staying informed about what’s going on. So that’s probably the place to start if you want to support the campaign.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Jeff Schuhrke (15:46) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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