Michael Hiltzik, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, reviews the context of the drive for unions at Starbucks. it’s CEO, billionaire Howard Schultz, wants to portray the far-flung coffee shop empire as worker-friendly, and he is flatly opposed to unions. He insists that the unions bring an adversarial edge and downplays the likelihood that unions would mean higher wages and benefits at the cost of profit margins.
Hiltzik writes:
Many American consumer companies, including Amazon and McDonalds, have been dealing with a surging interest in unionization by their employees, spurred in part by the pandemic-driven recognition that their employers have consistently undervalued their contributions to business success.
But few such union drives are as high-profile as the one at Starbucks. One reason may be the company’s warm and comforting image and its efforts to project a friendly relationship between customers and workers, who are designated in company parlance as “partners.” That’s very much at odds with the image of an employer so cold to the welfare of its workers that they’re spurred to organize.
Another may be the rapidity of the unionization drive’s expansion, which began with pro-union votes at three Buffalo-area stores. Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union that is organizing union votes, says 223 Starbucks locations in 31 states have filed for votes with the NLRB.
That’s a fraction of the roughly 9,000 company-operated stores in the U.S., but reports of new successful votes are streaming in on virtually a daily basis. Five stores in the Richmond, Va., area voted for unions by overwhelming margins on April 19 alone, and workers at the company’s Seattle Reserve Roastery, a flagship tourist draw in Starbucks’ home city, announced a successful vote on April 21.
Workers United says 28 Starbucks stores have now voted to unionize, up from nine that had done so as of April 1.
“Because Starbucks is a front-facing company considered ‘essential,’” Workers United organizing chief Richard Minter says, “the pandemic exacerbated the employer-employee relationship. The partners were left in the crosshairs without the resources necessary to handle what was happening, without the right precautions and protocols that allowed them to feel safe.”
The company has mounted a fierce counterattack against the organizing drive. In videotaped town hall presentations, written communications to workers and managers, and in meetings with workers around the country, Schultz has repeatedly characterized unions as a menace to the company’s economics and future.
“Outside labor unions are attempting to sell a very different view of what Starbucks should be,” he wrote in an open letter posted on the company’s website April 10.
Employees “supporting unionization are colluding with outside union forces,” he wrote. “The critical point is that I do not believe conflict, division and dissension — which has been a focus of union organizing — benefits Starbucks or our partners…”
The union threat, Shultz said in a town hall meeting shortly after his reappointment as CEO, extends beyond Starbucks: “Companies throughout the country [are] being assaulted in many ways by the threat of unionization.”
Starbucks, in an anti-union FAQ posted on its website, warns that “unions get their revenue from dues, which could come out of your pay each week or month.” It says, “unions use dues to pay for their office overhead, staff salaries and other expenses,” though it doesn’t mention the expense of negotiating contracts and enforcing their provisions, which are of course the chief duties of unions.
The company also has hired the law firm of Littler Mendelson, which boasts of its skill at guiding companies “in developing and initiating strategies that lawfully avoid unions.” These include advising management on “precise and compliant messaging to employees … that may include informational signs and posters, home letters, meeting materials, testimonial videos, social media postings, handouts and campaign websites.”
Followers of labor-management relations will recognize that Schultz’s words come directly out of the canonical corporate anti-union playbook:
Paint the unions as “outsiders.” Imply that their only goal is to add members. Say they’ll disrupt the smooth working of the company or even drive it out of business. Say they’ll make it impossible for workers to deal directly with management. Talk about how much money workers will lose to dues…
Starbucks is plainly aware of the complaints about pay and working conditions that are fueling the organizing drive. The company has displayed on its website a poster it says reflects “issues we have been hearing from partners…”
Starbucks is not new to the arena of fraught labor relations. Its animosity toward unions dates back to Schultz’s 1987 acquisition of the company, then a local chain of coffee spots in Seattle. At that time, Starbucks employees were represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. Former workers say Schultz promised to honor the UFCW contract but almost immediately tried to renegotiate it.
It’s conceivable that Schultz honestly sees himself as the hand that can improve Starbucks’ relationship with its workers, and that unions will only get in the way. He’s adept at projecting sincerity, as when he says in an employee video of the worker meetings that “it was difficult and emotional at times to hear the challenges and the issues that partners are facing.”
Unlike some other companies, Starbucks has not turned a cold shoulder to unions that have been voted in at its stores; Workers United says the company has begun to meet with union representatives at two of the Buffalo stores that touched off the organizing trend, though they have not reached contracts.
The real question is whether the company will draw the right lessons from the union organizing drive: that unions and management can be partners, not invariably adversaries, that demonizing unions won’t improve labor relations, and that workers’ interest in unionization doesn’t mean they hate the company.
None of Microsoft’s U.S. workforce is unionized. It seems probable that Bill Gates’ opposition to public schools is substantially an anti-union campaign.
Bill was recently interviewed. The article title was, “Bill Gates: I’m friends with Melinda, despite what she says.” He also said, “From my point of view it was a great marriage.” In a prior interview, he described young women at the Epstein apartment as like decor.
CEO’s see things the way they want to see them because it is advantageous to them. There is no reason to think Starbuck’s CEO is different.
The difference between a neurosis and a psychosis is that the latter involves grave distortions of reality–delusions and hallucinations.
And being rich means that when you speak your delusions, others say, “Oh yes, you are so right, sir.”
Good points, Bob.
“Because Starbucks is a front-facing company considered ‘essential,’”…..REALLY!!! Essential? Give me a break! If Starbucks closed every store today, customers would not be starving by the end of the week. In fact they would have more $$$$ in their pockets to put healthy food on the table. I believe in unions, but starting with Starbucks is just the epitome of stupid.
Thx for the deets. As a proud Union Actor and VO Artist, I know quite well the virulent anti-union rhetoric these barista’s are facing. I hear it frequently from non-union performers living in RTW states who have full time gigs AND ALSO Work in various genres in the Media and now the Metaverse. As they build their careers, they too want better wages and working conditions but they delight in demonizing unions before everything else. Contradictory, I know; IJS.
Thanks, Karla, for supporting unions!
America’s mid and late 1950’s became known in our nation’s history books as “America’s Happy Days” because there was economic equality across our nation as a result of union membership being at its highest level, resulting in workers receiving their fair share of corporate profits and employment contracts that included health care and fixed-benefit retirement income instead of unreliable 401(k) schemes.
America’s Churches strongly support American workers’ moral and constitutional Right of
Assembly to come together in unions to obtain safe working conditions and equitable pay — take a look at the following official declarations by church denominations in support of workers’ right to unionize:
“Governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labor unions. The repeated calls issued within the Church’s social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum, for the promotion of workers’ associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honored today even more than in the past.”
— POPE BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical “Caritas in Veritate”
“[The unions’] task is to defend the existential interests of workers in all sectors where their rights are concerned. The experience of history teaches that organizations of this type are an indispensable element of social life, especially in modern industrialized societies. [Unions] are indeed a mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice, for the just rights of working people in accordance with their individual professions.”
— POPE JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical “On Human Work”
Other denominations, Christian and Jewish alike, have taken official positions supporting unions. Here are some examples:
“We reaffirm our position that workers have the right to organize by a free and democratic vote of the workers involved.”
— Resolution, AMERICAN BAPTIST CHURCHES in the U.S.A.
“Jewish leaders, along with our Catholic and Protestant counterparts, have always supported the labor movement and the rights of employees to form unions for the purpose of engaging in collective bargaining and attaining fairness in the workplace. We believe that the permanent replacement of striking workers upsets the balance of power needed for collective bargaining, destroys the dignity of working people and undermines the democratic values of this nation.”
— CENTRAL CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN RABBIS, Preamble to the Workplace Fairness Resolution
“We believe in the right of laboring men to organize for protection against unjust conditions and to secure a more adequate share of the fruits of the toil.”
— DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, Resolution on the Church and Labor
“Free collective bargaining has proved its values in our free society whenever the parties engaged in collective bargaining have acted in good faith to reach equitable and moral solutions of problems dealing with wages and working conditions.”
— CHRISTIAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, Discipline Doctrine
“The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America commits itself to advocacy with corporations, businesses, congregations and church-related institutions to protect the rights of workers, support the collective bargaining process, and protect the right to strike.”
— EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA, Resolution adopted by Churchwide Assembly
“Justice demands that social institutions guarantee all persons the opportunity to participate actively in economic decision making that affects them. All workers — including undocumented, migrant and farm workers — have the right to choose to organize for the purposes of collective bargaining.”
— PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH U.S.A, “Principles of Vocation and Work,” adopted by General Assembly
“The Unitarian Universalist Association urges its member congregations and individual Unitarian Universalists in the United States… to work specifically in favor of mechanisms such as: reform of labor legislation and employment standards to provide greater protection for workers, including the right to organize and bargain collectively, protection from unsafe working conditions and protections from unjust dismissal.”
— UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST ASSOCIATION OF CONGREGATIONS, adopted by General Assembly
“The 21st General Synod reaffirms the heritage of the United Church of Christ as an advocate for democratic, participatory and inclusive economic policies in both public and private sectors, including … the responsibility of workers to organize unions for collective bargaining with employers regarding wages, benefits and working conditions, and to participate in efforts further to democratize, reform and expand the labor movement domestically and abroad.”
— UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST, “Resolution Affirming Democratic Principles in an Emerging Global Economy,” adopted by 21st General Synod
Amen!!!
Words are cheap.
5,500 Catholic schools, 300 are unionized. As a result of the conservative Catholic majority on SCOTUS, Catholic schools don’t even have to adhere to civil rights employment law.
Odd that the Catholic University of America and Georgetown Catholic University, both in D.C., are so chummy with right wing, libertarian Koch and /or his network.
What is Georgetown Law’s decision about Ilya Shapiro?
Quikwrit-
If your point is that people believe what they want to believe whether there is contradictory evidence or not, we agree.
William Barr and Leonard Leo received awards from Catholic organizations for what they did to the country. Given the record of Leo’s conservative Federalist Society and reports about Barr, “Barr slams teachers unions,” only fake news would give them credit as labor’s champions.
If we review the 1300 member Legatus organization, “membership limited to the highest tier of Catholic business leaders,” we could identify how many embrace unions. The organization was founded by the right winger, Thomas Monaghan, who founded Dominos. In 2019, during Trump’s term, “Dominos avoids union after NLRB Overturns Election Results.”
Paul Weyrich co-founded ALEC, an organization known for its anti-union draft legislation.
I highly recommend the on-line article, “The Anti-Catholic Playbook,” 9-5-2018, posted at TypeInvestigations.
Quikwrit-
There may be interest at the blog in knowing when the USCCB held a discussion about denial of communion to CEO’s who fought against collective representation for workers.
What honesty looks like- “The Mormon Church has a long history of conflict with the labor union movement.” (For context purposes- Latter Day Saints are less than 3% of the U.S. population.)
Another really good reason to avoid the $10.00 cup of coffee
Why should everyone in the working class be free to join a labor union without any blow back from an autocrat like billionaire Howard Schultz?
I think the 18th and 19th century Lord Acton already answered why centuries ago.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority.”
And it seems President Theodore Roosevelt agreed with Lord Acton, back around 1900, when he had a chance to kill the unions but refused to do so saying that workers should have a voice and someone to stand up for them when needed.
Yes, the leaders of labor unions may become corrupted by their power, too, just like so many billiaonres and elected repreantives have been, but without labor unions, workers end up being nothing but victims of far too many corrupted billionaire autocrats and their hit squads. If we built a list of the ones we know, it would be very long and we’d see names like Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Vlad Putin, Charles Koch, Walton, Betsy DeVos, Ron DeSantis and many more.
I haven’t posted any comments to this (or even my own) blog for quite some time, but the complexities of this issue have always interested me.
The Obama’s helped produce the movie “American Factory” several years back which very sadly was only available on Netflix and never made it to the theaters. Even though it won an Oscar for Best Documentary, when I mention it, most people tell me that they have never seen it.
Part of my childhood was spent in Schenectady, NY, where Thomas Edison started General Electric. In the 1950s downtown Schenectady was a prosperous city. I still remember gazing in awe when I was about 5 years old at all of the merchandise in the stores at Christmas time. Fast forward a couple of decades and downtown Schenectady is essentially a ghost town, after GE moved jobs first to the southern U.S. and later elsewhere. Currently I live on the San Francisco peninsula, not far from Silicon Valley, and I often wonder if the same thing could ultimately happen here. Nothing lasts forever.
“American Factory” portrays a similar struggle in Dayton, Ohio. An old closed car factory is purchased by a Chinese entrepreneur and converted into a windshield manufacturer. It is a highly interesting cultural study of both the Americans, beaten down by the loss of their previously high-paying auto union jobs, and the Chinese. The Chinese workers are amazingly obedient and hardworking, but are clearly exploited. For example, the work day begins with military style drills, safety standards are often ignored, and the “labor union” leader is a relative of the CEO and also the local Communist Party head. It is the height of hypocrisy that the foremost “Communist” country is essentially a mirror of the practices of the English period of the Industrial Revolution, yet China has pulled more people out of abject poverty in a shorter period of time than any country in history.
As long as income and legal protections are not distributed equally internationally, how can one “establish the millennium” anywhere without eventually losing it to someplace more desperate? There never seems to be a stable equilibrium, but only competition and strife 😞. It would be great if workers could unionize, but at the same time not become complacent or prone to beating down anyone who tries to excel… Unfortunately that balance seems beyond human capabilities.
P.S. – Bob’s comment about Starbucks “$10 cup of coffee” is an important point. Their prices are getting to the point where sales might start declining, and it would not be surprising if management is chewing their fingernails about keeping costs from escalating further.