Employees at two Starbucks in Massachusetts have voted to join a union. There are 9,000 or so Starbucks. More of them in the state and other states are considering unionizing. Is a revival of unions in the private sector beginning?
Baristas at the two locations first petitioned to unionize in December, inspired by similar action at cafes in Buffalo, New York. A total of 15 Massachusetts Starbucks — and nearly 200 across 29 states — have since taken steps to form a union.
Employees at two Boston-area Starbucks cafes voted unanimously to formally unionize Monday afternoon — a first for the coffee giant in Massachusetts.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great! I may go back to a unionized Starbucks, just for a cup-a-joe, and to support the workers. Of course, it hasn’t happened here (in Southern Ohio) yet. Here’s something all readers of this site can do–support unionized businesses. For e.g., we shop for groceries, etc. almost exclusively at Kroger, because they are unionized. And we don’t use the self-checkout. (That’s a move by greedy corporations to reduce staff).
ALSO, unions are an important part of the communications network. All unions have communications–newsletters, podcasts, in-person meetings–not just about job issues, but about larger issues and elections. They endorse candidates. That is a pipeline of communication independent of the major news networks. Even if we don’t always agree with views being communicated, they are at least largely independent. Unions were a big part of the progressive era (1900 to 1980?). America works best when there are multiple voices, not just for-profit news.
Support the Union Movement
(Note of disclosure: I am drawing pensions from two unions, SEIU & OEA, but these views are my own).
The coffee’s terrible, though.
Agreed
Yes, yes, yes!!! More (much, much more) of this!!!
Meanwhile, Joe Manchin, enemy of children:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/manchin-s-cold-blooded-move-to-push-millions-of-americans-back-into-poverty/ar-AAW95kC?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=2fedd98759ea46faaa3174949931ef08
Manchin is a DINO. He’s going to please his corporate handlers instead of reducing child poverty to 12%.
This is simply evil. Words fail to capture how depraved it is.
When workers attempt to unionize in the US, that is when we discover the Putin’s of America, US billionaires that brutally crush the workers and/or close those stores firing all of those workers. The ruthless, greedy, power hungry Walmart Walton family has done it time and again.
That is when we discover the Putins of America
Precisely
This is good news, especially in the rabidly anti-union USA. Sadly, many of the workers have bought into the anti-union propaganda, i.e., that unions are evil creations of Satan and Beelzebub and his 2nd cousin Bozolzebubba. The anti-union libertarian types say that unions are obsolete and unnecessary because of all the laws on the books and any way, if you are doing your job, there’s nothing to worry about. Total bunkum from the pro-corporate cheer leaders. Libertarians who claim to be for liberty and freedom of association don’t want to grant that same freedom to workers to form unions.
While I am ALL IN for unions, we have to highlight unionizing 2 Starbucks’?!!! A seller of froo-froo coffees that are a luxury ticket item that people don’t actually need. Paying over $4 for a cup of burnt tasting coffee isn’t worth it in my book. How about we highlight and pressure to unionize the necessary jobs that the working poor need in order to put food on the table….grocery store clerks, truck drivers or even Amazon workers (as much as I hate that monstrous monopoly and its founder Jeff Bezos).
we have to highlight unionizing 2 Starbucks?
At this point in the United States, unions are so on their backs that any little forward movement anywhere is a big deal. It’s really sad. Agreed about gig workers generally. Nothing changes until we have a much more steeply progressive tax system, strong anti-trust legislation that is actually enforced, an end to the evil “right-to-work” laws, and a decent social safety net for the poor.
Oh, and required worker representation on corporate boards.
The triumphant Starbucks and Amazon workers unionization votes have thrust New York City into the forefront of leadership in organized labor’s national renaissance.
Its significance transcends material strides in collective bargaining. It validates proud and unapologetic demands for stature in the workplace.
Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks and erstwhile imposter social progressive, last week cried that his corporation is “under assault” by unions.
He is bewildered that this could happen, as he had tried so hard to establish credibility as a crusader for human rights. He thought he had won over his potential critics with this fraudulent public persona and thrown these sniffing dogs off the trail of his hypocrisy.
But he departed from the script and his true nature has spilled out. He has blown his cover and been forced into a defensive mode that he clearly thinks doesn’t befit his exalted nature as a captain of industry.
Rank has its privileges. And so Schultz has inadvertently confessed that he’s about more than pumpkin spice latte and engaging customers in dialogue about racial justice.
His brew may be free-trade but his union-avoidance will not be free of cost to him.
Schultz has nurtured Starbucks since its inception, is protective of what he deems its legacy, and covets the persistence of its quaint and reputable culture. But he is disturbed by those whom he last week accused of attacking his beloved company.
Who are those assailants? Labor unions! On an intensifying scale they are amassing against him, and he is bewildered, hot and bothered.
Nothing like the wrath of a frappuccino oligarch.
He had placated his employees with impassioned but shallow appeals to their loyalty by calling them and partners. He sought to buy off their restlessness by offering some perks. But the underlying long-term business decision was always to suppress their awareness of incremental exploitation.
Schultz had been away for a while, but when he returned to his CEO throne recently, he wasted no time with pleasantries He ripped into union organizers with a rapaciousness that was a departure from his former less blatant style.
He called unions a “threat”.
There’s no way to finesse that categorization. Threats are never benign and neither was Schultz’s comeback. He compared the management-fostered bonding among his non-unionized workers to kinship in the Holocaust. Perhaps he was conjuring a link between the sharing of blankets and tips?
“We didn’t get here by having a union!, Schultz pointed out. His observation was correct but his implied conclusion is a red flag.
“I’m not anti-union. I’m pro-Starbucks!” Simultaneous compatibility and contradiction. Schultz didn’t get where he is by being an amateur at dissembling, phrase-contortion and meaning-twisting.
He reportedly called unions “outside organizations” and no doubt if he had his druthers, they’d stay that way!
He noted that in their absence ,Starbucks grew from a few stores to many thousands of profitable venues. To him, unions are invaders from an alien universe and he yearns to preserve the internal cohesion that is his coffee-houses’ pride and joy (as it was of the confederacy).
He threw down the gauntlet by firing a union-organizer just hours before a union-authorization vote. He’s thrown down a ton of gauntlets lately.
For a long time Schultz was an ace at playing hardball while acting as Mr. Nice Guy. By establishing impeccable and unchallenged liberal credentials, (wink wink) he threw many of us off our guard, never suspecting him to be a union-buster.
He figured it was a perfect camouflage.
Only around 10,000 company-owned Starbucks stores are presently prospects sights for unionization. A larger number that carry the Starbucks name that are licensed but not company owned are not for now.
When Schultz wanted to read the riot- act to his employees, he required 100 percent attendance. He summoned them to a compulsory assembly where he sternly cautioned them about the self-destructiveness of their proposed democratic experiment.
Time and again the National Labor Relations Board has frustrated him. If they don’t conform to his wishes, why should he comply with their findings, eh?
The improving labor union landscape is an ominous sign from Schultz’s perspective, and his managerial challenges are accordingly extended to anger management. He is crying “fire!” in a crowded theater. He is not entirely mistaken, because certainly there is an ignition, but it is one that is building, not destroying.
Howard Schultz’s marketing skill is rivaled by his penchant for sleight of hand and paternalistic benevolent despotism. The enticements he offers employees all come with strings that he is, at his pleasure, all too ready to clip and watch his baristas drop like one of Albert Pierrepoint’s clients into the abyss.
He calls his employers “partners”.
That’s a gross, calculated and cynical misrepresentation, reminiscent of charter school hawkers always using “scholar” instead of “student” . Flattering, smacks of upscale and exotic. It’s a game of linguistical optics.
Howard Schultz and Eva Moskowitz can be tag-team “partners” in the sport of semantical three-card monte.
Schultz’s Trojan Horse corporatism has been spotted pooping on the egalitarian paradise of his espresso empire and he is the equestrian astride it. He’s got the accoutrements and the leanings. And a tongue prone to whipping.
Howard Schultz will probably roll back his harsh tycoon image and go through the motions of accommodation to a degree. But his motives and game-plan will remain in plain sight.
For internal consumption, Mr. Schultz may be emboldened to replace the mermaid-like icon on his coffee cups with a picture that more faithfully adheres to his fantasy, such as a Pinkerton goon. But this won’t deter the principled workers at Starbucks from staking their claim, uniting and unionizing.
Ron Isaac
Well stated .
THIS!!!!! So perfectly said, Mr. Isaac!!!! Thank you!
Well here comes the party poop-er. Great they won the election. But this is a long way from a first contract between Oligarchs at Amazon and Starbucks and these Union workers .
Before the NLRA Unions were far more militant ,they won recognition by employers from workers conducting strikes, sitting downs on factory floors and if necessary violence when confronted by employer goons and the State . Pre 1936 labor had its ups and downs, the high from Triangle Shirt Waste fire through WW1 . The low 5% +- in the mid to late 1920s .
In the shadow of the Communist Revolution with the Great Depression still raging the ruling class led by John D. Rockefeller Jr. temporarily dropped its opposition to the Wagner Act. Unions being the preferable alternative to revolution. The Wagner act was designed to take militancy out of the movement replacing it with negotiations.
“The denial by some employers of the right of employees to organize and the refusal by some employers to accept the procedure of collective bargaining lead to strikes and other forms of industrial strife or unrest, which have the intent or the necessary effect of burdening or obstructing commerce by (a) impairing the efficiency, safety, or operation of the instrumentalities of commerce; (b) occurring in the current of commerce; (c) materially affecting, restraining, or controlling the flow of raw materials or manufactured or processed goods from or into the channels of commerce, or the prices of such materials or goods in commerce; or (d) causing diminution of employment and wages in such volume as substantially to impair or disrupt the market for goods flowing from or into the channels of commerce.
The inequality of bargaining power between employees who do not possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract and employers who are organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association substantially burdens and affects the flow of commerce, and tends to aggravate recurrent business depressions, by depressing wage rates and the purchasing power of wage earners in industry and by preventing the stabilization of competitive wage rates and working conditions within and between industries.
Experience has proved that protection by law of the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively safeguards commerce from injury, impairment, or interruption, and promotes the flow of commerce by removing certain recognized sources of industrial strife and unrest, by encouraging practices fundamental to the friendly adjustment of industrial disputes arising out of differences as to wages, hours, or other working conditions, and by restoring equality of bargaining power between employers and employees.
Experience has further demonstrated that certain practices by some labor organizations, their officers, and members have the intent or the necessary effect of burdening or obstructing commerce by preventing the free flow of goods in such commerce through strikes and other forms of industrial unrest or through concerted activities which impair the interest of the public in the free flow of such commerce. The elimination of such practices is a necessary condition to the assurance of the rights herein guaranteed
It is declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self- organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection.”
In 1947 the empire struck back. The effects of Taft Hartley and later Landrum Griffen taking decades to be fully realized. The Militancy of the Earlier Labor movement all but gone. Business Trade Unionism having replaced it as those same Businesses crushed labor at every opportunity.
Both these employers will challenge these results in the Court System for years. Then they will stonewall negotiations till they call for a decertification vote. At that point how many of the 35% of workers who voted for the Union at JFK8 or Starbucks will still be employed at either Amazon or Starbucks.
Personally, i have no need to drop the point the 2020 election fraud. Just as much as censoring the population at large from public discussion, on discussion media open to the public, about topics connected to our ‘afghan pederast heroin cartel’ war crimes during election year where one of the candidates was the most culpable perpetrator, constitutes election fraud even before any votes get tallied by anyone.
I think dropping that kind of point would be allowing one’s own self being definable as a ‘fghan pederast heroin cartel’ as well.
And by classic definition.
Even being a life long atheist, i still wouldn’t some sht like that.
Not how all that is working out by the way. Turns out no one wants to fight communists under comunist junky fgts or unionized lesbians. Understandably, anyone besides the afor mentioned slime farmers, would much rather commit suicide on their own terms. Assuming it should ever came to it.
Maybe obiden can draft his own homo junky constituencies and go fight putin with some imaginary weapons or something??
Wait wait, i know, maybe they can use their favorite projection strategies or something…
GL with that.
And while this likely was not the “election” you were referring to, joel(pederast heroin cartel,) i still think it had to be said.
]2epo]v[an. Get psychiatric help. Please. For the sake of everyone who comes in contact with you.
Ah another angry white male “victim” spewing junk Russia RepubliQan propaganda. Why don’t you suggest your seditious treason party get a platform instead of blathering shop-worn Kremlin hate speech? It’s dull, inoffensive and illustrative of your woefully infantile mind.
QAnon on drugs! Pretty scary.
I apologize for allowing this insane rant to stand as a comment. I was in Massachusetts yesterday and checked the comments off and on but missed this one.
I don’t allow crazy people to make crazy comments, and you won’t hear from this one again.
Yes, definitely brain-damaged by overdosing on QAnon pedophile garbage.
Thank you, Joel, for this history!
“D. Rockefeller Jr. temporarily dropped its opposition to the Wagner Act. Unions being the preferable alternative to revolution. The Wagner act was designed to take militancy out of the movement replacing it with negotiations.”
Good point, Joel. I have long thought that the conflict Marx anticipated between owners and workers did not materialize because of unions and their Montesquieu effect–the creation of a power center that pushes against an extant power center.
Strange starbucks thinks they could survive unionization. Even stranger that a public education blog would host a topic about it. More strange than that? The only thing i could imagine that might be more odd could only be the wide spread endorsement and fraudulent election installing a confirmed pederast heroin cartel war criminal instead of a guy with a pornstar for a wife.
No one respects a pederast heroin cartel because no one goes to war for junky fgts and unionized lesbians. Citation, Ukraine.
Its probably time to admit that a lot of these “unions” are confirmed enemy combatants. Police union in particular and only followed by the teachers union and the californian actors guild.