As baristas seek to organize, the feds cite Starbucks

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Seattle Weekly

December 7-13, 2005

A Union Shop on Every Block

As baristas seek to organize, the feds cite Starbucks.

by Philip Dawdy

 

In a first for Starbucks, the National Labor Relations Board

(NLRB) charged the company with violations of federal law on

Nov. 18 in response to complaints filed by the Industrial

Workers of the World (IWW), which has waged a yearlong

campaign to unionize three coffee shops in New York. In the

filing, the NLRB asserted that the 10,500-store

Seattle-based chain violated the National Labor Relations

Act by engaging in unfair labor practices, specifically

citing instances of employees being fired for union activity

and Starbucks managers conducting surveillance of and

questioning employees about union activities, among other

claims.

 

Daniel Gross, an IWW organizer and Starbucks barista in New

York, says the union wants to organize workers so they can

get a guaranteed 30 hours of work a week to make ends meet

in pricey Manhattan. " Starbucks has been breaking the law

nonstop, " he says, referring to what he characterizes as

union-busting activity by the company. Gross says company

managers monitored employees through a camera at one

Manhattan location. The IWW campaign is the first attempt to

unionize the latte behemoth's employees in the U.S. In

Vancouver, B.C., 10 Starbucks stores are unionized. Company

sales for fiscal 2005 amounted to $6.4 billion.

 

" We believe we've acted fairly and lawfully in every aspect

of the campaign, " says Audrey Lincroff, a company

spokesperson. She declined to answer questions about

specific charges in the complaint, which she says the

company plans to defend against at a hearing Feb. 7 in New York.

 

Whatever the outcome, nothing has been coming between

Starbucks and, well, more Starbucks outlets in recent years.

In 1999, the company had 2,000 stores worldwide. It's now

adding stores at the rate of five a day, or 1,800 a year,

and is in 37 countries, as CEO Howard Schultz recently

bragged on national television. Schultz himself stopped in

at one of the New York stores this past summer, according to

Gross, who was in the store at the time. " I challenged him

to sit down and talk, " Gross says. " He said 'no' and walked

away, visibly nervous. "

 

Schultz might have good reason to be nervous: the nonunion

company has more than 100,000 employees.

 

 

Being a pacifist between wars is as easy as being a vegetarian

between meals. " --Ammon Hennacy