100 Starbucks Stores Strike to Send New CEO a Message: No More Union Busting

The employees say that the brand new CEO ought to reject the anti-union ways of his predecessor, Howard Schultz.

A whole bunch of Starbucks employees from coast to coast are placing on Wednesday to ship the corporate’s new CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, a message to interrupt the development and convey an finish to the corporate’s fierce union-busting marketing campaign.

Over 100 stores are occurring strike, together with in main cities like Boston, New York, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Employees are additionally planning to strike in Seattle, the place they’ll march outdoors of the corporate’s headquarters the day earlier than the corporate holds its annual shareholder assembly.

“Starbucks baristas like me are those who preserve our shops working. We bear in mind our prospects’ common orders, make the lattes, clear up spills, and are sometimes the intense spot of our prospects’ days. We’re the guts and soul of Starbucks,” Sarah Pappin, Seattle Starbucks employee, mentioned in a press release. “As an alternative of celebrating the law-breaking former CEO hell-bent on silencing us, Starbucks ought to respect our proper to prepare and meet us on the bargaining desk.”

“As Starbucks celebrates their provenance and file income this week, my companions must take care of the fact that we’re being nickel and dimed to extract as a lot labor as cheaply as potential,” mentioned Maria Flores, a Starbucks worker in Queens, New York.

Employees are demanding a seat on the desk in Starbucks’s shareholder and different company conferences. Earlier this month, the union wrote a letter to shareholders urging them to vote for a proposal for a 3rd occasion to evaluate the corporate’s dedication to employees’ rights, saying that their union-busting marketing campaign runs counter to its personal internal labor pledges.

The employees are additionally asking for higher situations like livable wages, constant hours and the power to unionize and arrange their workplaces with out interference from the corporate, in response to a press launch. The corporate has certainly pulled out a dizzying array of anti-union ways as employees have organized their union, together with firing employees in retaliation for unionizing and completely shutting down shops which have unionized or are unionizing.

Just lately, a Nationwide Labor Relations Board (NLRB) choose dominated that Starbucks had violated federal labor legal guidelines lots of of instances in Buffalo alone; general, in response to Starbucks Employees United, the NLRB has discovered over 1,400 labor legislation violations from the corporate within the lower than two years that employees have been unionizing.

Starbucks Employees United says that new CEO Laxman Narasimhan, who began his tenure on Monday after three-time CEO and board member Howard Schultz stepped down two weeks sooner than anticipated, has an opportunity to buck Schultz’s anti-union ways and pave a brand new path for the corporate and its employees. Schultz stepped down simply earlier than he’s scheduled to testify in a listening to concerning the firm’s union busting led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) subsequent Wednesday.

“Wednesday’s day of motion will even serve to welcome the corporate’s new chief government, Laxman Narasimhan, and ship him a message that the transition within the C-Suite offers a chance for the corporate to cease its unprecedented marketing campaign of union busting and as a substitute associate with its employees and our union to construct an organization that really lives as much as its said progressive values,” says the press launch.

Wednesday’s strike is among the largest actions held by the union to date. Final yr, employees walked out a number of instances in similarly-sized strikes to protest the corporate’s union busting; in November, the union staged a “Pink Cup Riot” on the corporate’s “Pink Cup Day,” during which the corporate rakes in a few of its highest income of the yr and offers out branded pink cups to prospects.

​​Not everybody pays for the information. However should you can, we want your assist.

Truthout is broadly learn amongst folks with decrease ­incomes and amongst younger people who find themselves mired in debt. Our website is learn at public libraries, amongst folks with out web entry of their very own. Folks print out our articles and ship them to relations in jail — we obtain letters from behind bars usually thanking us for our protection. Our tales are emailed and shared round communities, sparking grassroots mobilization.

We’re dedicated to retaining all Truthout articles free and accessible to the general public. However with a purpose to try this, we want those that can afford to contribute to our work to take action — particularly now, as a result of now we have simply 8 days left to lift $47,000 in vital funds.

We’ll by no means require you to present, however we will ask you from the underside of our hearts: Will you donate what you may, so we will proceed offering journalism within the service of justice and reality?