Starbucks is continuing its vicious anti-union campaign, even as the failure of that campaign to keep workers from voting to unionize becomes more clear by the day. Speaking to The New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin late last week, Starbucks interim CEO Howard Schultz made clear that, under his leadership, the company will not bargain in good faith with its union.
Asked if he could imagine “embracing the union,” Schultz simply said “No,” in a “why are you asking me this ridiculous question” tone. Starbucks Workers United has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board over that statement, which is in direct conflict with the company’s claim that “We will bargain in good faith for those seeking third-party representation.” In fact, Starbucks is required by law to bargain in good faith. If the NLRB finds merit to the charge (and Schultz is on video here), it will try to get Starbucks to settle, and if the company refuses, the NLRB can take the charge to court.
That’s not all, though.
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Starbucks recently closed one of the three Ithaca stores that has unionized, and the one where workers held a one-day strike over an overflowing grease trap. It’s true that Starbucks has a lot of stores and sometimes it closes them. But this is an extremely busy store near the Cornell University campus, and it’s been there for 17 years. It’s a suspicious closure coming in the middle of such an extreme anti-union campaign by the company, and workers there were not guaranteed jobs at other stores. In response, the union is calling for a boycott of the remaining Starbucks stores in Ithaca.
With Starbucks stock dropping, one major investor, Trillium Asset Management, is calling on the company to end its union-busting campaign. “In the last 10 months, Trillium has been actively pressing Starbucks to respect worker rights to organize,” the firm’s chief advocacy officer said in a video released by More Perfect Union, adding that the company “should not put [its] reputation in jeopardy with behavior that the NLRB regards as union busting.”
Despite the ferocity of the company’s efforts to prevent its workers from joining the union, though, the workers are overwhelmingly voting to do just that. There are now more than 140 unionized Starbucks stores, the vast majority of the stores that have voted on union representation.
The union did lose an election in Michigan last week. It won eight. Yes, all in Michigan. Workers also voted to unionize at stores in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, California, Florida, Texas, and Utah. The momentum is real, and there are more votes coming.
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