NEWS: Starbucks Workers Form First Union

POLITICS: Starbucks Workers Form First Union

In an email newsletter from The Industrial Workers of The World IWW members were informed that New York City Starbucks workers have submitted union cards to the NLRB for a certification election. This would be the first Starbucks Baristas certified union in the country.

YEAH! workers of the world UNITE!!!!

Great, now I'll be paying twelve bucks for a cup of coffee.


[Edited on May 19, 2004 by Sadistic_Bastard]

aww. you know, they DO make the stuff that you can make at home for much, much less...

Will be interesting to see how it turns out, but I doubt it'll get far. It is historically dificult to unionize low skill/non skilled jobs. The available pool of labor is just too large to control.

Wobblies wobble but they don't fall down

You mean like Farm Workers?

yeah, if you keep going to starbucks.

I'm not sure I agree with that. Most of the workers who unionized in the first part of the 20th century were factory and manual workers. Not exactly highly skilled professions.
I imagine that Starbucks is like most franchises. It depends on where you work as to how you get treated and what the pay and benifits are. I think it's great that the employees are standing up and not being taken advantage of.

I agree with unionizing Starbucks employees and I'm co-owner of a store.I never realized how bad a corporation Starbucks was until I bought a share of the store-it was one of the worst mistakes I've ever made.
I inherited some money from my grandfather and went to a financial advisor,who advised me to buy into a Starbucks because they rarely lose money.That is true but they control their franchises with an iron fist.Like the article states,they dictate what we can pay employees and how many hours a week we can have them work-it's in the franchise contract.On top of that,Starbucks customers have to be some of the most arrogant people I've met.I've had coffee thrown at me,been cursed at,when I see someone treat an employee bad I givve them their money back and send em on their way.I cant wait until I can get out of that contract and invest in a more socially-conscious business.Unionizing might be the kick in the *ss Starbucks needs!!

listen if you are drinking starbucks coffee,you shouldnt worry about how much your spending.be it 6 bucks or twelve,you obviously arent very fruggle..its a fucking cup of coffee...i say good for them...let them exercise their constitutional right to organize.i dont think that people that serve coffee should be paid much better then the 7.50 or so they are getting now...but their raises should be better,and the company should not be juggling peoples hours,just so that they can avoid adgering to the law to provide benefits to them,once they reach full time hours!
good for them

[Edited on May 19, 2004 5:07PM]

No, the workers will just get some of the profit. How much does it cost to make a cup of fancy smancy coffee? about 50-75 cents.

$12 my ass, where did you get your economic know how?

lets not undervalue the skills associated with blue collar workers..factory workers and "manual workers"
do in fact possess some very marketable skills.i sincerly doubt that many people could grab a hammer and a few nails and build a worthwhile table.servers at restaurants,and cashiers and such are in fact a redundant job that could be performed by a vast majority of people,but lets not confuse those jobs with those of "manual labor" and factory workers...they build cars in factories,and i know i dont know shit about building cars

Has anybody seen fight club?

Think aboot it.

6 years too late for me, but god I hated working Starbucks, only retail I've ever done though.

You're right. That's a core component of the Starbucks business model.

It reminds me of Denis Leary's tirade about coffee.

Hazelnut crunch?

hehehe

Most grocery store employeees are unionized. That's about as low skill as you can get.

Yay! Now I can be confident knowing that the person handing me my cup of coffee is being treated justly and fairly. Screw the person who grew the coffee and got paid 3 bucks a day. I wanna make sure that my fellow college student is being treated fairly.

In all seriousness though, I'm glad for the single father who works at the Starbucks next to my school to support his daughter.

this is great. and the Wobblies, of all unions! fuck yeah!

Now if Starbucks would make the total switch to fair trade coffee, it would be even better.

Yay for Starbucks and its employees. I was just commenting not fewer than 24 hours ago... in my journal no less... about how much I loved Starbucks. Now there's more to love.