News Jun 29, 2022 at 11:02 am

Relocated Employees Speak Out After Weekend Strike

Seven Starbucks locations went on strike this weekend in solidarity with recently relocated workers HK

Comments

1

Pardon my language but "Heritage District" is just bullshit. Who wants to know fun facts about Starbucks?

2

This is strange. In Hannah's tweet about this article, Twitter has a "The following media includes potentially sensitive content" disclaimer requiring a click to view.

https://twitter.com/hannahkrieg/status/1542219635348492288?s=20&t=GVrEqxS4MB1Ox9d_YRuKMQ

3

Maybe a Heritage District is an attempt to create a welcoming environment for MAGA expatriots fleeing the federales?

4

@1 Who indeed. But "ambassadors for the Mission and Values" is just the kind of rank b.s. corpo talk that Howard Shultz adores. Its a plausible cover!

5

Gross. Someone should stand outside those stores to share the fun anti labor facts about starbucks they don't want people to hear.

6

Schultz’s idea of heritage is selling the Sonics and watching them go far away from Seattle.

8

I'll show solidarity for the baristas by continuing never to buy anything from Starbucks.

10

@9 Sure, right now workers in service industries have some leverage. But what happens when the inevitable downturn comes and Starbucks can pick and choose and reassign to its heart's content? That's when you really need a union to protect your gains, and forming one will be much harder under those circumstances, as more employees will fear for their jobs. Good economic times are always the ideal time to get organized. (And it's funny, I never hear union bad-mouthers say anything critical about industry associations -- i.e., employer "unions" -- in which Starbucks surely is a major presence.)

13

@12 Hmmm .... I don't see the relevance of that fact (if indeed it is a fact -- I suspect Starbucks has seen far more unionization attempts in its history than we've ever heard about), but you do raise a question that's interesting in its own right: Why now?

I think the answer has to do with a prevailing ideology that began more or less with Reagan that unions were bad, bad, BAD, and no worker should ever want to be part of one. (And those who promoted this idea back then could point to the anti-democratic, mafia-run Teamsters as a cautionary tale.) Only in the past decade or so has that mindset really started to shift in a major way as a new generation with no memory of that era's incessant anti-union propaganda has come of age, looked at the whole history of labor struggle and come to a very different conclusion about the value of workplace organizing than the boomers or Xers did.

14

@12 Another important difference between then and now is the uneven but overall decline in the living standards and working conditions of low-level service workers. In 1985, making $5 or $6 an hour meant you could rent your own apartment (near your job, if you wished) and still have enough to buy and operate a serviceable used car. The fact that this is virtually impossible now even at $15-20 an hour has surely given added impetus to recent organizing efforts.

15

Oh Boo Hoo!

If the dissenting Starbuck, or rather former Starbuck workers, don't like Starbucks, then why work there?

Starbucks can decide which stores to keep open, provided they have a rational basis to do so... in this case crime riddled environment, courtesy of the Seattle City Council will do nicely.

Finally, I wouldn't re-hire the "flatulent foxes and grumpy goats" from these stores.... let them go picket a small private coffee house and see if they can provide health insurance, two week advance scheduling, 401K etc. Go Ahead, make a pigs breakfast of it.


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