E121: IWW Starbucks Workers Union, part 1

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In recent years, thousands of Starbucks workers have organized themselves
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at hundreds of locations around the US and walked out
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on strike. But before the current wave of unionization, in
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the two thousands and earlier, group of workers also decided
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to take on the biggest coffee corporation in the world.
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Through grassroots organizing and a direct action approach, they managed
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to win improvements on the job against one of the
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most infamously anti union corporations in the world. This is
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working class.
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History as we come. Margin margin in the beauty of
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the day, A million dark in kitchens, a thousand mil
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last grade are bredden by the beauty his sun Sun
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discloses and the people hereusing and branden roses Bredden roses.
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Before we get started, we just wanted to remind you
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that our podcast is brought to you by our Patreon supporters.
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can listen to all three parts of this mini series now,
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as well as an exclusive bonus episode with more information
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and context, So if you can, please join us and
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help us preserve and promote our history of collective struggle.
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Sign up and listen today at patreon dot com slash
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working class history link in the show notes. In twenty
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twenty one, workers at a Starbucks store in Buffalo, New
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York got together and officially formed a union at their workplace,
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Starbucks Workers United. Since then, workers are over six hundred
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and forty other stores around the US have unionized as well.
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As we're making these episodes, Starbucks workers are on strike
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demanding a union contract and an end to union busting.
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So we thought now would be a good time to
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explore the little my own previous wave of workers organizing
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at Starbucks in the two thousands, and the lessons we
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can learn from it. Starbucks was first formed as a
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single coffee shop in Seattle in nineteen seventy one. They
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opened a couple of other outlets, and in nineteen eighty
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two they hired Howard Schultz, who led expansion efforts and
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put together a group of investors to take over the company.
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In nineteen eighty five, Starbucks coffee roasters unionized with the
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United Food and Commercial Workers Union and store workers joined
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as well, but a union official reported Schultz quote going
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ballistic end quote at them and removing them from work premises,
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and soon the union was decertified in stores, and in
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nineteen ninety two, the roasting plant union was decertified as well.
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With the union gone, the scene was set for Starbucks
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to expand massively with no risk of its workers demanding
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too big a share of the pie. Over the course
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of the nineteen nineties, Starbucks had a meteoric rise, growing
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from eighty four stores in the US in nineteen ninety
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up to over three thy five hundred around the world
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a decade later, with a turnover of over two billion dollars.
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By two thousand and four, this was up to over
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five billion dollars. This explosive growth was built on the
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backs of its workers, coffee growers in the global South
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and baristas in its stores.
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A typical workday at Starbucks, it was rough, and I
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was struck pretty quickly by that. And I remember, like,
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this is obviously, you know, twenty plus years ago. I
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still remember in particular this start, like Starbucks has really
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mastered how to suck as much labor as possible out
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of you, you know, drain you each hour, each shift,
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each minute, right, So I was definitely struck right off
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the bat that there was something really intense about the
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type of exploitation there.
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This is Daniel Gross, who started working at Starbucks in
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New York City in two thousand and.
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Three, you know, and this is in New York City,
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where Starbucks paid a little bit more in New York
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than elsewhere, but we were still only making seven dollars
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and seventy five cents an hour. And that's that's not
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a good wage anywhere, but in New York with the
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cost of the very basics rant utilities, transportation, food on
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the table, it was a very very low wage for global,
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multi billion dollar corporation, over one hundred thousand workers.
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Seven dollars seventy five an hour, then it's worth about
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twelve dollars in current money, so well under what is
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now the New York City minimum wage of seventeen dollars
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an hour.
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Like if you had opened my refrigerator at that time,
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and this was not just me, this is so many
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of us. You know, you'd see all the expired leftover
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Starbucks food. I'm not sure now today how it works,
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But then if the food has expired, we could take
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it home, so you know, bist we're loading up on uh,
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you know, egg seals, sandwiches and caramel bars expired, and
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you know that was very big part of what we're eating,
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you know, on this wage was the expired Starbucks food.
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So you know, wage very very low. Were there tips, Yes,
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there are some tips. You know, it's just cash tipping,
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but you know when you got your paycheck. Basically the
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tips usually would be for like a metro card. Okay,
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now I can get my metro card so I can
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get to work.
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On the first of January twenty twenty six, metro cards
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were discontinued, but until then they were travel cards allowing
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you to use city public transport. They cost seventy dollars
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a month back then, equivalent of around one hundred and
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twenty dollars today.
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The pay we took home it was even lower than
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like one might think with that wage because you know,
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we were all part time. One hundred percent of us
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were part time. There's no full time breached the role.
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And this was not no in to the general public.
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It was not known out there. We were the ones
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that brought it out into the world that this company
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had invented one hundred percent part time employment model, so
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no guaranteed hours. You know, they would max us out,
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like I think at thirty two hours. Sometimes you might
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get more, but I think technically it was like thirty
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two hours going by memory here, don't quote me exactly
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on the numbers.
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Workers would be scheduled for anything between eight and thirty
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seven hours per week, and the schedules would only be
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posted one week in advance.
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That'd be the max. But sometimes you'd get you know,
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twenty eight hours, Sometimes you'd get twenty hours, sometimes you
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get eighteen hours, then you might pop back up to thirty.
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There's literally just no guaranteed hours, and then you might think, oh, okay,
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well at least you know, like okay, your Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
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so you can get a second job. No, you know,
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they always pushed you to have maximum availability, and your
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shift would fluctually. You know, you might be off this
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Monday and then back on the following Monday. So it's
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not like you can go to home depot and get
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a second job. So you know, the compensation was very
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low and you know, unpredictable, right, unreliable in terms of
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what your schedule. I mean, our coworkers who are single
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moms would talk a lot about childcare. Right when you
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don't know when your shift is going to be, the
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childcare question is much much, much more challenging. It's already
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super challenging, but even more so when you don't know
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what your shift is going to be. So that was
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a huge issue understaffing. You know, you see baristas, we're
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constantly talking about understaffing.
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Another big issue was workloads now today, in large part
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due to the campaigning of Starbucks workers back then. Many
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people have an understanding of the fast paced and stressful
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nature of coffee shop labor, but at the time Starbucks
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had ccessfully cultivated this image of a really bohemian almost
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community spice.
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I think this is less true now, But then there's
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kind of a popular imagination right in the media that
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was pushed of, like the quaint coffee shop with the
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artsy barista, and it's a neighborhood thing. You don't really
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think about it. Many people didn't how it is, which
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is the fast food chain with incredible demand in many
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parts of the day. So the shifts were very, very stressful,
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you know, Just to kind of put an illustration on
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it several times, not once or twice. So you know,
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from time to time, not infrequently, you see a coworker
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at the bar literally breaking down, breaking down, total freakout,
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just because it's just such an overwhelm, you know, big,
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big demand, understaffed companies, pushing these time metrics on your throat,
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writing you up all the things, really really stressful shifts,
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very tightly controlled. So in my day, I don't know
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if this is still the case. We had to attach
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timers to our green aprons, literally put them on our aprons,
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and it was a ten minute timer. You press the
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timer and then every ten minutes you either go clean
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the bathroom, stock the condiment bar, or what have you.
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You know, they enforced you have your timer on, is
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it ticking and all these things. It was just very
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very controlled. You know, you gotta shake dice tea lemony
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ten times. You know, if you shake it nine times,
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you know the boss is coming for you. You shake it
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eleven times, to Boston coming for you. You know, it's
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ten times, shake it ten times. So I laugh because
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it's absurd, but it made for you know, really really
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really rough shifts. Now, don't get me wrong, many of us,
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including me. I mean, I think it kind of depended.
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Some some baristas are like, just put me on the bar,
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I don't want to talk to any customer, and then me,
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I was kind of a mix. I liked the bar,
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but I was also fine interacting with customers. I enjoyed
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the repartee with customers and just being there and joking
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with co workers. You know, I don't want I don't
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want it to sound like we didn't have many beautiful
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moments as co workers and some fun and funny moments
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with some of the better customers, because that was real
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as well. But I think the final thing that comes
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up kind of in the systemic issues of what it
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was like at work was the healthcare story, which we
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would call the big lie.
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As many people will know, the US is the only
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wealthy country which doesn't have universal healthcare. Most people depend
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on private health insurance which is attached to their work,
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but some employers try to get out of providing this
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while still trying to promote an image of themselves as
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benevolent employers.
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Starbucks is remarkable. This I think one of the greatest
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corporate pr propaganda achievements, probably in the history of they've
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got to study this in the PR textbooks, where huge
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swaths of the US public believed that Starbucks was a
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leader in healthcare. And it's completely understandable why people would
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believe that because the company, via corporate media, had systematically
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repeated this lie and spin and so everyone like you
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could literally stop someone on the street and ask them,
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what do you know about Starbucks employment, and they'll say, oh,
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it's great. The workers get healthcare like clockwork.
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As an example of the success of this PR campaign,
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we found one fawning article in The New York Times
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from nineteen ninety two talking about how Starbucks takes a
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quote counterintuitive approach and treats all of their employees as
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quote a resource rather than a liability end quote, an
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offerer's quote a full play of benefits end quote, to
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all full and part time workers. It goes on to
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talk about the working class upbringing of CEO Howard Schultz,
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describes his quote passion on workplace equity end quote, and
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says he sounds quote almost too good to be true
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end quote. But as the saying goes, if it sounds
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too good to be true, it probably is. And so
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it was.
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Now, of course, we're there and many of us don't
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have healthcare. Why well, first of all, you needed to
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work two hundred and forty hours a quarter even to
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qualify to purchase it. Remember, no guaranteed hours, so some
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percentage qualified to purchase, but then you have to go
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buy it, and you know, seven to seventy five an hour,
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very very difficult to afford anything, even if it's as
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important as healthcare. And it was really interesting at the
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time there was this huge discourse. Starbucks was the good
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one on healthcare and the poster boy for the bad
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one was Walmart, and Walmart was beat up in the
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press and all these things rightly, So don't get me wrong,
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but we finally dug, because you know, Starbucks won't release
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these numbers, but we finally dug and we got that
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Walmart actually had a superior percentage of workers covered than Starbucks,
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though the whole thing was just a complete propaganda coup.
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In reality, only forty two percent of Starbucks employees had healthcare,
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and that figure included management and office workers, so the
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actual percentage of baristas would have been considerably lower. Meanwhile,
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forty seven percent of Walmart workers had health insurance.
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Those are some of the big bullet points. But you know,
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another huge issue. I was not directly affected by this,
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but the definitely definitely put it out there. Starbucks discriminated
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aggressively against workers of color, particularly women of color. Single
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moms had a lot of the issues with Starbucks.
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In the popular mind, Starbucks workers are often young, single
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people and students working for a little extra money on
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the side. But then, as now, this was largely a myth.
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You're absolutely right, the popular imagination, which of course is
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shaped by the corporations, their lobbying outfits, and their pr groups. Right,
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it's a very intentional narrative they push around. Yeah, you know,
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back then it was the arcade money was the thing.
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You know, it was this for arcade money or beer
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money type of job. But yeah, no, my experience belied
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that completely. My store, there was a very wide age range.
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We had folks late teens, early twenties up to let's say,
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folks in their sixties and everything in between. Many of
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my coworkers were Afro Caribbean folks, people from Trinidad, Guyana, Jamaica,
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Puerto Rican people, Dominican folks as well, contingent of African
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American workers, and then some white workers, so you know,
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a very different picture from you know, what they want
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to push on a popular imagination. We had many moms,
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you know, folks working to put food and rent on
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the table. You know, like like you said, I'm sure
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other cities had demographics that tracked with their cities. What
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I can tell you nationally, because this is something that
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we you know, we would get a hold of the
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data and track that definitely disproportionately black and brown workers
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were in the lowest paid barista role. That was always stark.
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Every level you got above barista, you see the proportion
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of black and brown workers going down dramatically. You know,
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they paid a lot of lips serve. You know, we
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embrace diversity and whatnot, and the diversity they embraces. We'll
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get you into the lowest paid role where we're as
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committed as humanly possible to keep a low paid roll
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and you know, make sure we'll keep black and brown
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folks out of the higher paid rules.
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From his previous work experience at the bookshop Borders, Daniel
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had tried to organize with his coworkers before, and in
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doing so joined the Industrial Workers of the World Union.
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He talks more about this in the bonus episode, available
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exclusively for our Patreon supporters link in the show notes.
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We've produced a whole series of episodes about the IWW,
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which you can listen to to learn more, like our
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episode six nine, sixteen, nineteen fifty two, seventy three, seventy four,
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and the first episode of the Working Class Literature podcast.
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But in short, the IWW is a revolutionary union. Rather
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than just trying to bargain for improvements, the IWW or
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Wobbley's aim to organize all workers together into one big
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union to fight for better paying conditions and eventually take
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control of all workplaces and reorganize production and society democratically
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in the interests of workers rather than for corporate profit.
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So with this view in mind, Daniel started to think
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about trying to organize at Starbucks as well.
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So my store was on the east side of Manhattan
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on Madison Avenue, this is the heart of the advertising industry.
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To add that little twist, I mean, every barista basically
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was frustrated with the issues I mentioned, you know, being underpaid, understaffed,
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difficulty with the work hours. So I think that was
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kind of motivated all of us. Speaking for myself, now
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in addition for something that may have been like a
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little bit more individually motivating to me, probably to others too,
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but I can only speak for myself. One thing I
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really hate because you know, you can kind of acclimate yourself, Okay,
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this is the staffing level, this is the bad wage,
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you kind of acclimate, but then there's that kind of
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hot thing you can't really ignore in the given moment.
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If for me it was one was they would grind
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this down. Management would with the metrics during rushes, and
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I remember still to this day, on one occasion, we're
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just flying to meet the rush. We're totally understaffed, you know,
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folks are like again, you know, at risk of breakdown mode.
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And my manager in back of me, almost literally almost
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literally in my ear, like close to my ear, just
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repeating again and again like a mantra, speed of service,
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speed of service, speed of service. Three minutes. I think
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it was three minutes at the time, if I remember correctly.
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You know, I'm just infuriating, right because it like it
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was so blatantly understaffed. On top of it, you just
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have someone you know, buzzing in your ear as you're
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trying to deliver the rush. And then of course, you know,
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inevitably there's a break in the rush. Oh you're fucking
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ten minute timer. I don't know if I could curse
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down your podcast. Ten minute timer goes off. Right now
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you got to go clean the bathroom or clean the
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cafe or stock the conniment bar, and then you know,
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to round it off, it's time for your raise. Like
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six months later. Yeah, like I think it was six
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months or a year in and you know, oh, you know,
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you're doing great, the customers love you. You know, you
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make the coffee right. You know, here was three cents.
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So it's kind of that cycle. Definitely for me, was
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kind of the motor which kind of played into just
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the general discontent that I had and a lot of
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us had with being underpaid and understaffed and difficulty accessing healthcare.
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I remember, this wasn't at my store. This was at
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a later store that workers in the union, not several
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years later, but one of the workers their case on
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Bolton Junior. He said, you know, we would just like
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to be treated like human beings and not machines. And
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that was it was a big part of it, you know,
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beyond like the dollars and cents, just so much tight
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control from all the way to the top, hitting us
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down over one hundred thousand of us as baristas. So
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I think that was kind of the motivation as I
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saw it.
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How Daniel start organizing, It's basically the way that anyone
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needs to.
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I mean, the first step I did is the same
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step you know these years later working with union builders
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through solid their union network, and it's like, you know,
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get a list, make a list of your coworkers, right,
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that was the thing, you know, all I had to
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do was get a hold of But you know, I
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think I just took or copied the schedule right or
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the roster probably both. Just get a sense, just have
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on paper or having your computer you know who the
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folks are, like literally the names of the folks, all
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the folks you work with, not just the ones you
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think will resonate. That's what I did. And you know
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part of that is, right those who want to do
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the one on one organizing part learning how to organize.
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There's so many nerves, right, the average most of us,
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you feel a lot of nerves thinking about going and
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having that first one on one Like, oh, Daniel, you
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know I should just get over this, Like why am
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I obsessing it of like, oh no, no, this is
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totally this is totally normal, and you're gonna get over
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it and it's gonna be hard, feudy. Probably even remember
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that how nervous you are for this first one. And
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I've intentionally over the years I always kept in mind
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of how nervous I was for those first one. I was.
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I was like, I gotta remember this because this is
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this is very real. And yeah, you asked how it began.
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It's like once I had that list, like, okay, I
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was on the shop floor in the cafe, you know,
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doing the shift. I turned to my coworker Joy, shout
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out to Joy. I lost touch with Joy, but I
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do recall it was a co worker by name of Joy.
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I was like, I don't know if it was Thursday
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or Tuesday, but it was. I was, okay, can we
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get together to talk about work stuff after our shift?
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On say it was Thursday? Like that was it, right?
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I got it out, like I spit it out finally,
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and yeah, we we got together and uh, you know,
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did the did the same structured type of meeting. I
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still believe in today, all these years later, the ai
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OU method agitate educate, inoculate organized union just basically a
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kind of structured way to have a conversation for those
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who haven't connected with that. No, you explore the issues together,
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you get pissed off about them. You then go to
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co create a union solution, and the next part of
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the conversation you you prepare your coworker for the union
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busting campaign and you offer up a concrete task, piece
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of work to advance the campaign, and you know, when
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when it's appropriate, you make kind of formal invitations to
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join committees or join the union, et cetera. So that
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was the thing, and it went well. I got lucky.
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My first one on one ever went well, and you
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know after that just rinse and repeat more one on
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ones and not all of them, but you know, went
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so well right off the bat. You know, some we're
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really challenging, required a lot of follow up. One case,
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you know, going to a co worker's home, meeting their spouse,
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talking their spouse through it because the spouse is very
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influential on the decision one of our core c who's
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going to make And yeah, that led to group meetings,
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putting together plans, strategy, getting better acquainted. Yeah, choreographing the campaign,
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getting clear on the priority of things. Yeah, that was
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the beginning and kind of kept on building from there.
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While I didn't originally learn organizing with the AEIOU method
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as such, the general principles I was taught and subsequently
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used were the same, and having later attended IWW organizer training,
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I did find it a useful framework. We've got various
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books with guides to organizing, including some written by Daniel,
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available in our online store. One of them, in particular,
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Labor Law for the Rank and Filer, written with Staughton
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Lind has been very influential, especially in recent years, helping
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inspire a wave of organizing at tech firms like Google
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and Kickstarter. We'll put them in the link in the
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show notes. Anyway, after conducting one to ones in the store,
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building support for the union and putting together a committee
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of coworkers who were prepared to be actively involved, the
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next step the workers took was preparing to go public.
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That dynamic between you know, what you could win on
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a store level, district level, regional level versus the national
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level versus corporate level was always a very important dynamic.
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You know, and you see this just right from the
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very beginning. Although initially we weren't the IWW Starbucks Workers Union.
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This is a kind of fun fact of history. We
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were very very beginning we were the I think the
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IWW Starbucks Baristas Union. But then later I think was like, oh,
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some shift supervisors may not know that they're included, and
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so we became the Starbucks Workers Union of the Industrial
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Works of the World. But that's the tangent. The main
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point is that from the very beginning we identified as
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something that would be open and be inviting all brised us.
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So we didn't have this notion that hey, this is
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our union for our store, right It was more this
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is the starting point. So no, the issues that we
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talked about were big picture corporate wide, the issue of
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the wage being too low for such a profitable company,
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the staffing and you know, the needing guaranteed hours. Those
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are very big needing to have a powerful voice of
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our own, not just to have stuff come down from
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Howard Schultz and you know trickle all the way down
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to the bottom of the pyramid. You know, fairness, especially
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around as I mentioned, it was very disproportionately co worked
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with color who were targeted by management in different ways.
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But yeah, we we didn't limit our vision or demands
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thinking that we'll be doing this just as once.
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Ultimately, we'll be right back after these messages. If you
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00:27:04.559 --> 00:27:07.079
want to listen to our podcast without ads, join us
447
00:27:07.119 --> 00:27:09.599
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448
00:27:09.640 --> 00:27:12.279
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00:27:12.279 --> 00:27:15.640
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451
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us at patreon dot com slash working class history link
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In the show notes, one thing that I did wonder
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was whether they're trying to organize as part of the IWW.
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An explicitly anti capitalist union was a barrier to trying
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to get other workers to join, But according to Daniel,
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it really wasn't so.
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The IWW Starbucks Brokers Union, you know, from the beginning,
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was the campaign of the New York City General Membership
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branch of the AWW. As the story and folds, we're
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going to talk about how we expanded around New York
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and then eventually nationally and then into Canada. Over time
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it became embraced as an IWW campaign overall. At my store.
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I'll tell you the most ineffective union busting was the
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red baiting. I still remember, honestly, kind of almost fondly,
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one of Starbucks's union busting memos, and you know, it
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was posted in the back of the store, and it
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was like, you know, the IWW there against what was
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it the economic underpinnings of the United States, of private
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property and limited government regulations. He so.
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Well, at least you could say that's true, you know,
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But that funny, I remember, you know, you know, it's
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not like we were all you know, radicalized, you know,
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activists or anythings like that.
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We're all just all different types of folks, you know,
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working together as Starbucks. It's i'd be I don't think
477
00:29:00.880 --> 00:29:03.759
it resonated with anybody, you know. It was just more like,
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this is funny. You know. It's the billion dollar corporation
479
00:29:08.960 --> 00:29:11.680
paying a seven dollars and seventy five cents an hour
480
00:29:11.880 --> 00:29:15.799
New York. We're all part time, and we're supposed to
481
00:29:15.799 --> 00:29:19.200
feel some type of you know, loyalty to the economic
482
00:29:19.319 --> 00:29:24.200
underpinnings of all this stuff. So yeah, I really didn't
483
00:29:24.200 --> 00:29:28.119
see that part being too effective. I think, you know,
484
00:29:28.160 --> 00:29:31.880
we we experienced the IWW through the community that we
485
00:29:32.079 --> 00:29:35.680
had as coworkers, like showing up for each other as
486
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:39.559
maybe some people think that cliche or whatever touchy feely,
487
00:29:39.680 --> 00:29:45.000
But if you heard and listened to how many many
488
00:29:45.039 --> 00:29:48.799
people discussed their experience in the union, it was about that.
489
00:29:49.279 --> 00:29:53.640
So when you kind of know the thing through experience,
490
00:29:53.880 --> 00:29:57.799
I think that stuff has less impact obviously talking about
491
00:29:57.839 --> 00:30:00.319
it up front. That's the inoculation part.
492
00:30:00.960 --> 00:30:06.680
Inoculation is the ipart of the ae IOU of organizing. Basically,
493
00:30:06.759 --> 00:30:10.680
it's preparing workers in advance for management retaliation and anti
494
00:30:10.799 --> 00:30:12.359
union management propaganda.
495
00:30:12.839 --> 00:30:16.519
The first stores that workers got organized in after New
496
00:30:16.599 --> 00:30:20.240
York with Chicago, and they were doing the red baiting
497
00:30:20.559 --> 00:30:24.799
and stuff, and workers were already deuced paying members. They
498
00:30:24.799 --> 00:30:27.759
had their red card, you know i WW red cards.
499
00:30:28.079 --> 00:30:31.720
The company was saying, this is the radical organization. It
500
00:30:31.799 --> 00:30:35.759
doesn't actually exist. Also, it's like this is this doesn't exist.
501
00:30:36.599 --> 00:30:39.640
Oh you know they're they're everybody is with their membership card.
502
00:30:40.440 --> 00:30:42.400
So yeah, I think that that was the thing in
503
00:30:42.440 --> 00:30:46.240
the IWW to its credit, you know, especially in its
504
00:30:46.319 --> 00:30:51.160
best moments like Local eight on the Philadelphia Waterfront is
505
00:30:51.200 --> 00:30:59.640
a great example. Longshore workers really combined strong material benefits
506
00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:03.079
and your day to day gains in the control you
507
00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:06.759
have in your workplace and your industry, and that was
508
00:31:06.799 --> 00:31:10.480
the foundation through which to reach for, to reach for
509
00:31:10.559 --> 00:31:12.400
the society beyond capitalism.
510
00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:15.400
We tell the story of Localite and its leader Ben
511
00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:19.519
Fletcher in episodes seventy three to seventy four of our podcast.
512
00:31:19.599 --> 00:31:23.839
Always the way it is is the issues. Speaking for myself,
513
00:31:24.240 --> 00:31:28.000
I've also heard this many workers I have accompanied in
514
00:31:28.119 --> 00:31:32.039
union building in many industries have shared the same. But
515
00:31:32.160 --> 00:31:36.279
speaking for myself, like, when I'm on a job, my
516
00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:39.359
thing is the issues, right, I'm not going around thinking
517
00:31:39.559 --> 00:31:44.039
like capitalism YadA YadA, you know, abolish it. You know,
518
00:31:44.119 --> 00:31:48.160
it's issues are the way in. It's like my issue,
519
00:31:48.319 --> 00:31:52.200
my store, my manager, my district, my region, and then
520
00:31:52.359 --> 00:31:55.319
you know, over time, you know, get to the company
521
00:31:55.359 --> 00:31:58.359
of the industry and then the economic system. So yeah,
522
00:31:58.480 --> 00:32:03.319
definitely begin with the issues, but always at least sprinkling
523
00:32:03.519 --> 00:32:07.519
in from the beginning, like some of the more visionary stuff,
524
00:32:08.440 --> 00:32:10.799
just to at least set the stage. And then yeah,
525
00:32:10.880 --> 00:32:14.759
over time, you know, getting deeper and deeper. It's not
526
00:32:14.799 --> 00:32:18.720
like you sit down and say, hey, you know this
527
00:32:18.799 --> 00:32:21.880
is we're joining of you know, how do the wobblies
528
00:32:21.920 --> 00:32:26.000
put it fighting force or something to take on capital,
529
00:32:26.920 --> 00:32:30.160
but you know, sprinkling the vision and then kind of
530
00:32:30.200 --> 00:32:32.839
building up to it more over time, I think is
531
00:32:33.640 --> 00:32:35.799
how we did it and how I still think about it.
532
00:32:35.920 --> 00:32:39.200
Not I'm no longer a WOBBLI I'm a proud alumni,
533
00:32:39.319 --> 00:32:44.200
but still a revolutionary and yeah, definitely in my union
534
00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:45.839
building approach it that way.
535
00:32:46.640 --> 00:32:52.160
The fundamental principle of IWW and Daniel's organizing is solidarity unionism.
536
00:32:52.680 --> 00:32:57.000
Solidarity unionism basically refers to an organizing approach centered on
537
00:32:57.240 --> 00:33:01.319
an organizing committee within a workplace. So rather than focusing
538
00:33:01.400 --> 00:33:04.599
on official recognition through an election at the National Labor
539
00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:09.920
Relations Board or NLB, union staffers or contracts, it's focused
540
00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:14.920
on workers organizing themselves, forming a committee, making collective decisions
541
00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:18.160
about what to do and what to demand, and when necessary,
542
00:33:18.359 --> 00:33:21.160
taking collective action in pursuit of those demands.
543
00:33:21.720 --> 00:33:26.640
I WW Starbucks Workers' Union, it was solid their unions
544
00:33:26.920 --> 00:33:32.440
from the beginning, right worker led, worker operated preference for
545
00:33:32.559 --> 00:33:38.079
direct action in for fundamental change union when we say
546
00:33:38.079 --> 00:33:42.519
we're a union, regardless of what the boss or government says,
547
00:33:43.400 --> 00:33:47.640
all the things, but at the outset one of our
548
00:33:47.720 --> 00:33:51.559
first kind of experiments. We wanted to say, hey, can
549
00:33:51.599 --> 00:33:56.880
we make this solidar unionism thing fit with an NLLB election.
550
00:33:57.200 --> 00:34:00.359
So hopefully you have some labor nerds listening because this
551
00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:04.079
might just be for them, but this is kind of
552
00:34:04.319 --> 00:34:08.400
important for the story and how it unfolds. So at
553
00:34:08.440 --> 00:34:11.679
my store when we went public, we were the first
554
00:34:11.760 --> 00:34:17.159
and last IWW Starbucks Workers Union store to file for
555
00:34:17.159 --> 00:34:22.039
an NRB election, and this really informs how the campaign
556
00:34:22.119 --> 00:34:26.599
developed and evolved because the experiment got an answer, So
557
00:34:26.880 --> 00:34:29.519
if I may, let me kind of get into that.
558
00:34:30.079 --> 00:34:35.679
So it's interesting even observers who seem to be somewhat
559
00:34:35.840 --> 00:34:41.159
well informed on stuff haven't really got the memo correct
560
00:34:40.599 --> 00:34:44.840
of how this all happened, so it might be of
561
00:34:44.960 --> 00:34:46.320
interest now.
562
00:34:46.360 --> 00:34:48.480
We think this is an interesting thing to delve into,
563
00:34:48.639 --> 00:34:52.280
particularly because the decisions made by the IWW members in
564
00:34:52.320 --> 00:34:55.679
this campaign directly led to the legal precedent which was
565
00:34:55.719 --> 00:34:59.119
relied on by the current Starbucks Workers United union, which
566
00:34:59.159 --> 00:35:02.599
successfully began organizing stores in twenty twenty one. And we
567
00:35:02.599 --> 00:35:04.960
would hope that any labor nerds out there are at
568
00:35:05.039 --> 00:35:09.320
least listening to our podcast alongside organizing our committee Daniel
569
00:35:09.360 --> 00:35:12.440
and his colleagues were signing up their coworkers with IWW
570
00:35:12.639 --> 00:35:15.679
red membership cards, ensuring they had a solid majority of
571
00:35:15.679 --> 00:35:18.599
the workforce on board before going public with their campaign.
572
00:35:19.159 --> 00:35:24.199
So, yeah, meister, we preptical public. There's the direct action plan,
573
00:35:24.440 --> 00:35:27.880
there's the media plan, there's all the things. Solid their
574
00:35:28.079 --> 00:35:32.239
unionism is the model. But also we go and we
575
00:35:32.360 --> 00:35:35.760
take our majority to the NRB and we file our
576
00:35:36.239 --> 00:35:40.480
election cards. So this is a big piece of what
577
00:35:40.519 --> 00:35:41.400
would happen later.
578
00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:45.320
From organizing beginning in two thousand and three, the IWW
579
00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:48.519
Starbucks union eventually went public on the seventeenth of May
580
00:35:48.639 --> 00:35:49.760
two thousand and four.
581
00:35:50.280 --> 00:35:55.719
We filed for the election. Of course, Starbucks starts what
582
00:35:56.360 --> 00:36:00.320
truly would really stagger the mind of anyone to really
583
00:36:00.360 --> 00:36:03.840
grapple with the scope of the union busting campaign they
584
00:36:03.960 --> 00:36:08.880
launched nationally and internationally. But that's to come right. We
585
00:36:08.920 --> 00:36:11.280
can get into that, because that is an important part.
586
00:36:12.320 --> 00:36:16.239
But the kind of legal union busting right off the
587
00:36:16.320 --> 00:36:22.079
bat is as follows, Starbucks is not only trying to
588
00:36:22.159 --> 00:36:26.880
break down our majority, it's also doing something that is
589
00:36:26.960 --> 00:36:30.280
you know, probably even more sinister, is just simply saying
590
00:36:30.320 --> 00:36:33.559
that a vote can't take place that there should be
591
00:36:33.599 --> 00:36:38.400
no vote. And what it came down to was whether
592
00:36:38.480 --> 00:36:42.159
you could have a vote at a single store. Starbucks
593
00:36:42.239 --> 00:36:46.360
is saying no. We're saying yes. It's not like Starbucks
594
00:36:46.440 --> 00:36:48.840
was saying, Okay, let's have a vote, you know, at
595
00:36:48.920 --> 00:36:52.280
fifty stores or ten stores. Starbucks is just saying no vote.
596
00:36:53.239 --> 00:36:57.599
So it goes into the National Labor Relations Board hearing process,
597
00:36:57.920 --> 00:37:01.039
you know, basically it's a trial, and so we gathered
598
00:37:01.079 --> 00:37:05.280
a ton of evidence of how stores were related, and
599
00:37:05.320 --> 00:37:08.800
how they were organized, and how we could pick up
600
00:37:08.920 --> 00:37:12.599
shifts at other stores and all these things to try
601
00:37:12.639 --> 00:37:16.519
to break down the store as this sort of autonomous entity,
602
00:37:16.679 --> 00:37:20.599
which Starbucks, you know, which was that issue. Right, So
603
00:37:21.440 --> 00:37:23.880
we had earned the participation in the case of a
604
00:37:23.920 --> 00:37:28.920
brilliant labor attorney. We litigated the case. It was very
605
00:37:29.079 --> 00:37:34.800
very very very very hard fought, and we prevailed. Right
606
00:37:34.880 --> 00:37:37.119
so we won the right to have single store elections
607
00:37:37.119 --> 00:37:37.840
at Starbucks.
608
00:37:38.599 --> 00:37:42.760
This was a huge win, especially given NLLLB procedures which
609
00:37:42.840 --> 00:37:45.920
don't give employers the right to appeal this type of decision.
610
00:37:46.800 --> 00:37:50.199
With this type of victory over an election, whether you
611
00:37:50.239 --> 00:37:54.280
can have it or not, the company does not have
612
00:37:54.480 --> 00:37:57.840
a right to be heard on appeal. Right, it's not
613
00:37:57.960 --> 00:38:00.599
a right that it could be heard, but you can
614
00:38:00.760 --> 00:38:03.679
ask to be heard, and then the labor board in
615
00:38:03.800 --> 00:38:08.000
DP decides whether to hear your appeal or not right.
616
00:38:08.559 --> 00:38:11.440
So typically for something like this without some other type
617
00:38:11.480 --> 00:38:14.159
of agenda, the labor board is not going to hear it.
618
00:38:14.400 --> 00:38:16.440
It's like, hey, this is this is why there's a
619
00:38:16.519 --> 00:38:19.159
judge or a hearing officer at the local level and
620
00:38:19.199 --> 00:38:21.320
sees all the stuff and makes a decision.
621
00:38:21.840 --> 00:38:25.199
But this was during the Republican administration of George W.
622
00:38:25.280 --> 00:38:28.960
Bush and in which the Bush appointed majority now controlled
623
00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:29.679
the NLP.
624
00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:33.880
Union busting lawyers from private practice, they go into the
625
00:38:33.920 --> 00:38:37.000
labor board, they serve there so they can deliver for
626
00:38:37.079 --> 00:38:40.039
their clients and then go back later and get paid
627
00:38:40.079 --> 00:38:43.199
more to represent the same clients. So this is the
628
00:38:43.440 --> 00:38:46.920
piece which I think maybe has confused some people. This
629
00:38:47.239 --> 00:38:52.960
issue of whether workers could choose, you know, the constituency
630
00:38:53.000 --> 00:38:56.239
they want to have in electioning was very hot in
631
00:38:56.320 --> 00:39:00.880
corporate America at the time. Chamber of Commerce, the world
632
00:39:00.920 --> 00:39:04.960
of union busting law firms and their organizations. This is
633
00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.159
a really big issue. They of course didn't want this,
634
00:39:10.400 --> 00:39:14.599
so we spoke with our lawyer. Okay, how try to
635
00:39:14.639 --> 00:39:18.440
get the lay of the land on all this. What happens,
636
00:39:18.880 --> 00:39:23.280
Bush's Labor Board agrees to hear the case on appeal,
637
00:39:23.599 --> 00:39:25.760
So at that point the writing was on the wall.
638
00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:28.280
You know, you don't have to be a sort of
639
00:39:29.039 --> 00:39:33.800
wonk in legal procedure at that point to understand that
640
00:39:33.840 --> 00:39:36.880
Bush's Labor Board did not accept the appeal to affirm
641
00:39:37.800 --> 00:39:41.039
are right to have the election in retail chain stores.
642
00:39:41.159 --> 00:39:45.079
Right, Clearly, the board would only agree to hear an
643
00:39:45.079 --> 00:39:48.840
appeal it didn't procedurally need to hear unless it planned
644
00:39:48.880 --> 00:39:52.079
to uphold the appeal. And if the board decided that,
645
00:39:52.280 --> 00:39:55.400
rather than individual stores, votes would have to take place
646
00:39:55.400 --> 00:39:58.800
across a much bigger bargaining unit like every store, or
647
00:39:58.840 --> 00:40:01.639
even an entire city or state, it would make those
648
00:40:01.719 --> 00:40:03.840
votes almost impossible for unions to win.
649
00:40:04.440 --> 00:40:08.400
So there we had a choice. And meanwhile, while the
650
00:40:08.440 --> 00:40:12.960
appeal is heard, the election result gets stayed anyways, so
651
00:40:13.400 --> 00:40:16.320
the company then has two three years to keep crushing you.
652
00:40:17.119 --> 00:40:20.760
So essentially we had a clear choice. We could, you know,
653
00:40:20.920 --> 00:40:26.000
go to slaughter in the Bush Labor Board and fuck
654
00:40:26.119 --> 00:40:30.559
up the precedent for all chain store workers, or we
655
00:40:30.639 --> 00:40:34.360
could preserve the victory that we had won. So that's
656
00:40:34.400 --> 00:40:37.960
what we did. We pulled the election petition once it
657
00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:42.000
became clear that was a dead end, and that preserved
658
00:40:42.239 --> 00:40:44.679
the victory the precedent that you could have at a
659
00:40:44.760 --> 00:40:48.960
chain store, chain fast food, you know, anything where there's
660
00:40:49.199 --> 00:40:53.320
individual stores, you could have an election. So that was
661
00:40:53.920 --> 00:40:58.199
really good and really important in a couple ways. One
662
00:40:59.079 --> 00:41:04.960
after that we're like, experiment resolved. We're not going to
663
00:41:05.039 --> 00:41:09.239
mess with NLRB elections anymore. We're going to win on
664
00:41:10.159 --> 00:41:15.199
co worker to corker solidarity, direct action, other strategic leverage
665
00:41:15.239 --> 00:41:18.360
we can find and not get jammed up there.
666
00:41:19.079 --> 00:41:21.440
This is probably only a decision that a union like
667
00:41:21.519 --> 00:41:24.239
the IWW would have made and at least have still
668
00:41:24.320 --> 00:41:29.039
kept up the unionization campaign. Without official recognition, there would
669
00:41:29.079 --> 00:41:31.400
be no way of setting up a union shop, which
670
00:41:31.440 --> 00:41:33.800
is the typical way unions work in the US, at
671
00:41:33.880 --> 00:41:36.639
least in the approximately fifty percent of states like New York,
672
00:41:36.920 --> 00:41:40.320
which don't have so called right to work laws. So
673
00:41:40.360 --> 00:41:43.639
in these states, once union recognition is achieved, all workers
674
00:41:43.679 --> 00:41:45.679
in the shop must be members of the union and
675
00:41:45.719 --> 00:41:48.599
paid dues, and these will be mostly collected by the
676
00:41:48.599 --> 00:41:51.760
employer through dues check off and then paid to the union.
677
00:41:52.480 --> 00:41:54.880
Most unions in the US require this in order to
678
00:41:54.880 --> 00:41:57.519
guarantee that they can earn back the money they invested
679
00:41:57.679 --> 00:42:01.199
in backing an organizing campaign. But the IWW was a small,
680
00:42:01.320 --> 00:42:05.639
radical union which historically often opposed official recognition and even
681
00:42:05.679 --> 00:42:08.960
measures like signing contracts with employers. This is because of
682
00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:12.320
how signing contracts can tie unions to management in some ways.
683
00:42:12.920 --> 00:42:15.559
We explore these issues in some detail in our podcast
684
00:42:15.559 --> 00:42:18.239
episodes ninety nine to one hundred about the wave of
685
00:42:18.280 --> 00:42:21.480
strikes in the US during the Vietnam War. So while
686
00:42:21.480 --> 00:42:23.800
it would make it difficult for the IWW to set
687
00:42:23.880 --> 00:42:27.039
up a stable, long lasting basis in the industry, this
688
00:42:27.199 --> 00:42:30.920
legal precedent directly laid the groundwork for the successful recognition
689
00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:31.960
fights of today.
690
00:42:32.679 --> 00:42:36.599
The cool thing about how history works and how sort
691
00:42:36.679 --> 00:42:40.559
of in labor, we're always building on a fabric of
692
00:42:41.079 --> 00:42:44.559
folks who have come before us, right like for me,
693
00:42:45.719 --> 00:42:49.320
it was the bookstore workers, right like the border stuff
694
00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:52.840
I got involved with. The IWW had reached out back
695
00:42:52.880 --> 00:42:56.159
to me in part because they had had bookstore organizing
696
00:42:56.280 --> 00:42:58.800
around the turn of the century. There was a not
697
00:42:58.960 --> 00:43:03.320
huge but there's this significant bookstore worker organizing drive, and
698
00:43:03.559 --> 00:43:07.519
that ended up impacting us at Starbucks. So fast forward
699
00:43:07.559 --> 00:43:13.280
on this precedent to the recent president. The SCIU Workers
700
00:43:13.360 --> 00:43:17.079
United campaign begins at Starbucks. Right, of course, those of
701
00:43:17.159 --> 00:43:21.039
us who have ever worn the green apron, you know,
702
00:43:21.199 --> 00:43:26.159
you can't help but be really stirred and inspired when
703
00:43:26.280 --> 00:43:30.039
baristas start organizing. So the baristas are organizing at Starbucks
704
00:43:30.079 --> 00:43:33.800
Workers United, and they go to file for a single
705
00:43:33.840 --> 00:43:41.199
store election in Buffalo. Like clockwork, Starbucks of course goes
706
00:43:41.239 --> 00:43:46.679
to defeat their right to have the election. But the
707
00:43:46.800 --> 00:43:50.559
nice thing was that our president was there. The actual
708
00:43:50.679 --> 00:43:54.039
question of whether single store election could take place as
709
00:43:54.079 --> 00:43:59.199
Starbucks had been litigated and won, and so the workers
710
00:43:59.519 --> 00:44:03.960
today were able to prevail and maintain that right. And
711
00:44:05.079 --> 00:44:07.880
you know, a nice cherry on top is going back
712
00:44:07.920 --> 00:44:10.800
in the day. We had we had fundraised back at
713
00:44:10.800 --> 00:44:13.880
that time to purchase the trial transcript, right, so we
714
00:44:13.960 --> 00:44:17.519
had all the all the details and then of course
715
00:44:17.559 --> 00:44:21.920
all the legal arguments ours and theirs. So when when
716
00:44:21.960 --> 00:44:25.880
Starbucks Workers United the campaign today, when they asked for
717
00:44:26.039 --> 00:44:29.719
our stuff that we had developed, we were you know,
718
00:44:29.800 --> 00:44:32.880
able to happily of course share it with them. And
719
00:44:33.320 --> 00:44:35.719
you know, not only did they win those elections, they
720
00:44:35.880 --> 00:44:40.440
they've been able to leverage those election wins across the country.
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00:44:41.079 --> 00:44:45.320
So yeah, that's the story of my store on the
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00:44:45.360 --> 00:44:50.840
election part, and literally that's it. Starbucks workers, you know,
723
00:44:51.000 --> 00:44:54.920
organizing at the IWW from there for a decade and
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00:44:54.920 --> 00:45:00.199
a half run of strong unionism only returned in the
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00:45:00.280 --> 00:45:05.400
NRB around unfairlyabor practice charge of the de Guiche.
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00:45:08.679 --> 00:45:12.559
As we come, Marge Margin, we battle too for men
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00:45:14.440 --> 00:45:18.360
while they are in the struggle, and together we can.
728
00:45:18.159 --> 00:45:21.280
In that's all we've got time for this week. You
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00:45:21.320 --> 00:45:23.639
can learn more about what types of direct action the
730
00:45:23.719 --> 00:45:26.079
union took and what they won in the rest of
731
00:45:26.119 --> 00:45:28.480
this mini series, as well as how the union ended
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00:45:28.559 --> 00:45:31.519
up and lessons for today. Listen to that now by
733
00:45:31.599 --> 00:45:35.199
joining us on Patreon, which is how our work is funded. There,
734
00:45:35.239 --> 00:45:37.960
you can also access loads of other great exclusive content,
735
00:45:38.239 --> 00:45:41.480
including an exclusive bonus episode with more information from Daniel
736
00:45:41.519 --> 00:45:44.559
about his work and activism. It's only support from you,
737
00:45:44.719 --> 00:45:47.840
our listeners, which allows us to make these podcasts, So
738
00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:50.440
if you appreciate our work, please do think about joining
739
00:45:50.559 --> 00:45:54.159
us at patreon dot com slash Working Class History link
740
00:45:54.239 --> 00:45:56.800
in the show notes. Otherwise, the remaining parts will be
741
00:45:56.840 --> 00:45:58.760
out for everyone else in the next couple of weeks.
742
00:45:59.079 --> 00:46:01.440
If joining us Onreon isn't an option for you at
743
00:46:01.440 --> 00:46:04.039
the moment, please don't worry about it, but do tell
744
00:46:04.079 --> 00:46:06.559
your friends about this podcast and give us a five
745
00:46:06.559 --> 00:46:09.599
star review on your favorite podcast app. We've got books
746
00:46:09.639 --> 00:46:12.639
by Daniel and others available in our online store, including
747
00:46:12.679 --> 00:46:15.360
an account of organizing at Starbucks and a really useful
748
00:46:15.360 --> 00:46:17.800
book called Labor Law for the Rank and Filer, along
749
00:46:17.800 --> 00:46:20.280
with other organizing guides. Check them all out on the
750
00:46:20.280 --> 00:46:22.639
link in the show notes, and as a listener of
751
00:46:22.679 --> 00:46:24.920
this podcast, you can get ten percent off them or
752
00:46:24.960 --> 00:46:28.079
anything else in your first order using the discount code
753
00:46:28.159 --> 00:46:31.519
wh podcast. Daniel also has a new book out now
754
00:46:31.519 --> 00:46:34.159
with Haymarket called Unions of Our Own, so do get
755
00:46:34.199 --> 00:46:36.880
hold of that, and he's organizing right now with the
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00:46:36.920 --> 00:46:40.440
Solidarity Union Network. Links to them in the show notes.
757
00:46:41.079 --> 00:46:44.199
Learn more about the IWW in our podcast series, including
758
00:46:44.199 --> 00:46:49.519
episodes six, nine, sixteen, nineteen fifty two, seventy three, seventy four,
759
00:46:49.679 --> 00:46:52.880
and episode one of the Working Class Literature podcast. To
760
00:46:52.960 --> 00:46:55.880
hear more about current organizing at Starbucks, pop over to
761
00:46:55.920 --> 00:46:59.639
the Haymarket Audio podcast feed, where Clarissa RedWine is releasing
762
00:46:59.639 --> 00:47:02.599
an oral history called Heat the Ground Up. As always,
763
00:47:02.599 --> 00:47:05.679
we've got more information, sources, and eventually a transcript on
764
00:47:05.719 --> 00:47:08.559
the web page for this episode link in the show notes.
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00:47:09.119 --> 00:47:11.960
Thanks to our patren supporters for making this podcast possible
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00:47:12.239 --> 00:47:15.800
special thanks to jazz Hands. Our theme tune is Montanne's
767
00:47:15.840 --> 00:47:19.039
version of the classic labor anthem Bread and Roses, performed
768
00:47:19.039 --> 00:47:22.920
by Montanne and Nick Harriet, mixed by wave Racer. Download
769
00:47:22.960 --> 00:47:24.840
the song on the link in the show notes, with
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00:47:24.920 --> 00:47:28.760
all proceeds going to medical aid for Palestinians. This episode
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00:47:28.840 --> 00:47:32.400
was edited by Jesse French. Thanks for listening, Catch you
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00:47:32.440 --> 00:47:32.920
next time.
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00:47:33.320 --> 00:47:36.920
Moses Baden Roses