Come Together for Good Jobs at Starbucks

We, the undersigned, are coming together for workers. We call on Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to implement the following urgently-needed reforms:

1) A Raise to $15/hr - Raise starting wages to $15/hr, pay all partners at least $15/hr, and abolition of pay caps.

Is Starbucks Responsible For Driving Up Real Estate Prices in Gentrified Cities?

Tue, 02/17/2015 - 9:00am -- edirnbach
Link to article.
 
It’s a caffeinated spin on the old chicken-and-egg question: which came first?
 
By Jana Kasperkevic / The Guardian
 
February 16, 2015
 
Last year, the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn got its first two Starbucks – the first in July, and the second four months later. While across the river in Manhattan no one would blink an eye at yet another Starbucks popping up, in trendy Williamsburg the reactions were mixed.

Starbucks Announces Record Year in 2014 While Workers Still Wait for Improvements

Wed, 12/10/2014 - 3:48pm -- edirnbach

The Starbucks Workers Union has released a new report, Starbucks Announces Record Year in 2014 While Workers Still Wait for Improvements, which takes a look at the company's performance during the 2014 fiscal year which ended last September. The most crucial fact is that the company earned almost $11,000 in profit for every worker and this money could fund a significant wage increase instead of being given to shareholders.

Starbucks Workers Survey - Please Participate!

Thu, 10/16/2014 - 1:52pm -- edirnbach

The Starbucks Workers Union would like to find out more about your work experience.  

Please take this short survey.  By doing so, you are adding your voice to others who want to make Starbucks better!


All survey results are confidential and will not be shared without your permission.  If you would like to remain anonymous, please do not enter your contact information at the end of the survey.


Sincerely,
Starbucks Workers Union

For some Starbucks workers, job leaves bitter taste

Tue, 09/30/2014 - 10:35am -- edirnbach

Link to article.

By Alain Sherter, MoneyWatch, September 26, 2014

 

Liberte Locke, a 32-year-old "barista" at a Starbucks (SBUX) in New York City, is fed up.

"Starbucks' attitude is that there's always someone else who can do the job," she said in running through her complaints about life at the java giant.

If that isn't necessarily the consensus among Starbucks workers, interviews with nine current and former baristas at the company make clear it's not an isolated opinion, either. Even those who say they like their job paint a picture of a business that underpays front-line workers, enforces work rules arbitrarily, and too often fails to strike a balance between corporate goals and employee needs.

Of course, such complaints are nothing new in retail, where low pay and erratic schedules are the norm. But by its own account, Starbucks is no ordinary company and is ostensibly a far cry from the fast-food outlets now facing a nationwide uprising by employees tired of working for peanuts.

That's evident in the company's recruitment pitch. Starbucks invites job-seekers to "become a part of something bigger and inspire positive change in the world," describing it as a chance to discover a "deep sense of purpose."

Damage control

Keep the pressure on Starbucks!

Wed, 09/24/2014 - 10:14am -- edirnbach

Thank you for your support of our petition (http://www.coworker.org/p/fairstarbucks) calling on Starbucks to give its 130,000 US employees a fair workweek! More than 7,500 people from around the country have joined in our campaign to demand stable hours, advance notice of schedules, and access to full-time work.

Will you help us keep up the pressure? Here’s what you do—go to the Starbucks Partners Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/starbuckspartners) and post a comment for Starbucks in the box where it says "Write something on this Page."

Here’s a sample post — you can copy and paste one of the options below or write your own:


If you drink Starbucks:

I’m a Starbucks customer and I think the company should listen to your baristas. A fair workweek means full-time work, stable hours and real advance notice. 8 hours between shifts still doesn’t add up to a good nights rest. My coffee habit is consistent – so why aren’t your employee’s schedules? You made a step forward – but I know you can do better. Make a real policy change. http://www.coworker.org/p/fairstarbucks

If you work for Starbucks:

August 2014: Recent News from the Starbucks Workers Union

Hello Starbucks Workers and Supporters. There has been a lot of activity lately with the Starbucks Workers Union and at the company. Recently the union released a new report, Low Wages and Grande Profits at Starbucks, which includes an analysis of company performance and staffing before and after the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and shows that the stores are now staffed at a lower level, workers are working harder, and they are bringing in much more profit for the company. The report can be found in the News section of the website.

NLRB: Jimmy John's Can't Fire Workers for Icky Sick-Leave Protest

Mon, 08/25/2014 - 3:26pm -- edirnbach

Link to article.

By Josh Eidelson

The government is ordering a Jimmy John’s franchisee to rehire workers who were fired after putting up posters suggesting that the people making customers’ sandwiches could be ill.

In a decision dated Thursday, Aug 21, the National Labor Relations Board found that a Minnesota Jimmy John’s violated the National Labor Relations Act when it fired half a dozen workers active in a union campaign by the Industrial Workers of the World. According to the NLRB, pro-union workers, to protest their lack of paid sick days, had put up posters on community bulletin boards in the stores and in public places in the vicinity.

The workers “clearly intend to harm [the company] and the security of the 240 local jobs we provide,” said Mike Mulligan, the president of the franchisee, MikLin Enterprises. Although U.S. labor law generally bans retaliation against workers for taking collective action to improve their working conditions, the NLRB has ruled that companies can punish workers whose communications to the public are “so disloyal, reckless or maliciously untrue as to lose the [National Labor Relations] Act’s protection.” So management argued it had the right to can the Jimmy John’s activists.

How Starbucks Grinds Its Workers

Fri, 08/15/2014 - 11:30am -- edirnbach

Link to article.

August 15, 2014

By

The technology vs. human labor war is on, and technology is winning.

That’s one conclusion to draw from this blockbuster New York Times story on the worker-scheduling software used at Starbucks and other big retail firms. The technology helps to bolster corporate profits by optimizing workers’ hours to their employer's needs. But it often wreaks havoc on those workers’ home lives by introducing destructive uncertainty to their schedules.

The piece centers on Jannette Navarro, a single mother and Starbucks barista, who sometimes “clopens” her local store, both closing it up in the evening and reopening it a few hours later: 

Starbucks Workers Union Releases Critical Report on Starbucks

Tue, 08/12/2014 - 9:33am -- edirnbach

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE             

Contact: Sarah Madden, Sarah.starbucksworkersunion@gmail.com

August 12, 2014                                                                                                

Starbucks Workers Union Releases Critical Report on Starbucks

Company Enriches Shareholders While Maintaining Inadequate Working Conditions

NEW YORK, NY - The Industrial Workers of the World, Starbucks Workers Union released a report today, “Low Wages and Grande Profits at Starbucks” with an analysis of company performance over the last decade.  The report describes how Starbucks has dramatically improved profitability at the company since the Great Recession of 2008-2009, and that the company has enriched shareholders at the expense of its nearly 200,000 workers.

The report finds that “an analysis of company performance and staffing before and after the Great Recession of 2008-2009 shows that the stores are now staffed at a lower level, workers are working harder, and they are bringing in much more profit for the company.  Instead of funding a living wage for workers, the company has transferred almost $4 billion to shareholders in the past few years, equivalent to over $3 per hour for every worker at the company.”

Solidarity from Bean to Cup: Starbucks Baristas Stand with Pactiv Workers

Wed, 10/16/2013 - 10:02am -- Anonymous

The IWW Starbucks Workers Union declares its support for the 400 workers in Stockton, CA currently fighting against wage and benefit cuts their bosses at Pactiv are trying to force on them. These workers, members of the Association of Western Paper Pulp Workers Local 83, make paper cups and containers used by Starbucks, McDonalds, and other fast food chains. We stand in solidarity with them and the AWPPW, which has a long history of union democracy, just as we stand with all workers throughout the production chain. An attack on one group of workers cannot be tolerated; if we don't stand together, the power of working people everywhere is weakened. The IWW Starbucks Workers Union urges every IWW branch and all of our allies to take a stand for the workers in Stockton and participate in the Cup Justice Campaign in some way. When we stand up for workers, we build the power of our union and the entire working class. As one of their major customers, Starbucks shares in the responsibility for the greedy and unjust behavior of Pactiv. We must demand that Starbucks urge Pactiv to negotiate in good faith. An injury to one is an injury to all!

To find out more about the Cup Justice campaign, visit starbucksunfair.org and mcdonaldsunfair.org.

Baristas Put Pressure on Starbucks [Wall Street Journal]

Tue, 07/26/2011 - 12:26pm -- SWU
By JULIE JARGON Baristas are putting up pressure on Starbucks Corp. to come to terms with 200 unionized workers in Chile who have been on strike for more than two weeks. Employees who belong to the IWW Starbucks Workers Union kicked off a "global week of action" on Monday in solidarity with their Chilean colleagues by picketing in front of a Starbucks in New York City. The IWW baristas, who are not affiliated with the Chilean workers' union, say union workers will be handing out flyers describing the Chilean situation outside Starbucks stores in Phoenix, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, London and Melbourne, Australia. The IWW is also planning to stage an event in Starbucks's hometown of Seattle this week, but won't yet disclose the nature of it.

Union Victory at Starbucks [Counterpunch]

Sat, 01/15/2011 - 3:40pm -- SWU
Three years ago, union baristas at Starbucks made a simple demand of the world's largest coffee chain: respect the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. by paying baristas the same time-and-one-half holiday premium that you pay on six other federal holidays. It was an emotional and symbolic demand to make for two reasons. Many baristas are deeply inspired by Dr. King's legacy on racial equality, and King was murdered while supporting sanitation workers who were on strike for the very right to form a union.