Industrial Worker - Issue #1709, October 2008Submitted by Peter Moore on Sun, 10/05/2008 - 12:46am.
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Starbucks Settles Claim With NLRBSubmitted by intexile on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 8:25pm.Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW. The image pictured to the right did not appear in the original article, we have added it here to provide a visual perspective. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines. 
By Julie Forster - jforster [at] pioneerpress.com
Starbucks Corp. has agreed to a settlement with the National Labor
Relations Board on charges of anti-union activities at its Mall of America store
that stemmed from the July firing of a barista who tried to organize
workers.
The settlement agreement is the third nationally the Seattle-based
corporation has reached with the NLRB concerning alleged efforts to stop workers
from joining a union.
It comes in the wake of the August reinstatement of barista Erik Forman,
who still is trying to organize Starbucks workers at Twin Cities stores into a
union called the Starbucks Workers Union.
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Starbucks settles NLRB complaint of fired baristaSubmitted by intexile on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 8:09pm.Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW. The image pictured to the right did not appear in the original article, we have added it here to provide a visual perspective. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines. 
By LAUREN SHEPHERD - NEW YORK (AP) -- Starbucks Corp. has settled a National Labor Relations
Board complaint with an employee who said he was fired this summer for promoting
union activity.
The agreement marks the gourmet coffee chain's third settlement of an NLRB
complaint alleging the company was attempting to dissuade employees from joining
a union.
The settlement stemmed from a complaint filed in July by Minneapolis
barista Erik Forman who claimed he was fired for encouraging workers to join the
Industrial Workers of the World union. He was fired July 10 after he received a
"final written warning" for showing up half an hour late to work. The warning
followed two earlier tardy notices.
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Take E-Mail Action: Celebrity Chef Serving Sweatshop Seafood to Appear on The Today ShowSubmitted by intexile on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 3:30pm.Original URL - http://www.brandworkers.org/en/node/37146
Dear Friends,
Celebrity chef Terrance Brennan who serves seafood from known labor rights
violator Wild Edibles, Inc. is set to appear on NBC's The Today Show.
To add insult to injury, Chef Brennan's Artisanal Bistro lied to workers in
writing by stating that the restaurant no longer served Wild Edibles seafood.
After Brandworkers exposed the deception, Brennan admitted in a Sept. 1, 2008
press statement that his restaurant is still serving Wild
Edibles.
Please take a moment now to express your opinion that Terrance Brennan
lacks the credibility and trustworthiness that viewers of The Today Show expect
from guests. Click on the following link to participate: http://citizenspeak.org/node/1352
Thank you very much for all of your work to ensure that working families
receive the respect they deserve.
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Anti-Capitalist Bloc @ the RNC: An I.W.W. ReportSubmitted by intexile on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 3:17pm.
During the first week of September 2008, Republican Party delegates gathered in St. Paul, Minnesota for the Republican National Convention (RNC) - the media spectacle and corporate sleaze-fest that completes their nominating process. An army of armor-clad riot police, National Guard, and private security with their humvees, rubber bullets, and tear gas protected them. FBI-assisted sheriff's raids at more than a half-dozen activist homes and organizing centers in Minneapolis-St. Paul sought to hinder opposition. But thousands of protestors still took to the streets to emphatically reject the Republicans' vicious policies of war, discrimination, and attacks on the working-class and poor. Among the more important mobilizing efforts against the RNC was the Anti-Capitalist Bloc, an initiative of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) union - Twin Cities General Membership Branch. The Anti-Capitalist Bloc was conceived as an organizing front for the week of the RNC that would unite those anti-capitalist activists with an orientation toward organizing. The Anti-Capitalist Bloc issued a "Call" and adopted a set of "Solidarity Principles" that made clear our opposition to not only the Republican party but the whole system of capitalism. Ten other groups signed on including three other I.W.W branches. Approximately 1800 full-color posters with the Anti-Capitalist Bloc message were distributed over the course of the week. But as Wobblies, we know that words are not enough, and so a series of events, actions, and contingents were organized by the Anti-Capitalist Bloc.
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Request for Aid - HaitiSubmitted by intexile on Fri, 09/26/2008 - 2:31am.
Dear friends and comrades,
For two weeks in late-April and early-May four members of the Industrial Workers of the World traveled to Haiti to meet with labor leaders and document the plight of the Haitian working class. During our trip we encountered a Haiti still reeling from food riots which had gripped it just weeks prior. We found the workers and organizers that we met with to be extremely competent and passionate, but almost completely immobilized by a severe lackof resources.
Now a new crisis grips the Haitian people in the form of over a thousand dead and one million out of a total population nine million people displaced as a result of the recent hurricanes
which have battered the island.
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The long arm of RNC security reaches IWW at the MOASubmitted by intexile on Sun, 09/07/2008 - 2:55pm.
Today 8/31/08 at 1pm the Twin Cities IWW held at the Lake and Hiawatha
Light Rail Station in solidarity with Starbucks workers and to celebrate
getting our comrade Erik Foreman?s job back. The rally was a great success
with about 100 people showing up. At about 1:45 we all legally boarded the
light rail (using rail passes) and headed down to the Mall of America in order
to escort our fellow worker back to his first shift.
Everyone was peaceful and orderly on the train as we headed south. At
the Bloomington Station we were met by police who asked to speak with us regarding our plans. We informed the police that we did not wish to
cause any trouble, to protest inside of the mall, or to unlawfully assemble in
any way inside the mall. The police told us we should be fine and that we
would not have any trouble. We were then allowed to proceed to the MOA stop.
At the MOA the train was surrounded by police in full riot gear. They threatened to arrest us if we left the train. We were trapped inside
the train for about 20 minutes. The police even prohibited a woman with a
child who needed insulin from leaving the train, endangering the child's
health. After about 10 minutes and only after repeatedly insisting that we had
a
medical emergency did the police permit the woman and child to exit
the train. When asked why we were being detained a policeman said: "the
mall doesn't want you here." The officers? badge numbers were mostly covered
by their gear.
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IWW Barista Reinstated to Mall of America LocationSubmitted by intexile on Fri, 09/05/2008 - 2:23pm.Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines. 
Pro-union Starbucks barista gets his job back
NEW YORK -- A barista who said he was fired from Starbucks Corp. for helping to organize fellow workers into a union has been given his job
back.
In a preliminary reinstatement agreement dated Aug. 14 obtained by The Associated Press, Starbucks said its firing of employee Erik Forman was "ill-considered and should be reversed."
Forman said he will start back at work on Sunday at the same Mall ofAmerica location in Minnesota that he was fired from in July.
When he worked there, Forman said he had been talking to employees at his own store and at other stores in the area about joining the Industrial Workers of the World union.
In an interview, Forman said although several other employees at the store were members of the union, "I was the most vocal and the most
active."
Starbucks spokeswoman Tara Darrow confirmed that Forman was being given his job back but said his firing and reinstatement had nothing to do with his support for the union.
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Industrial Workers of the World General Headquarters PO Box 23085, Cincinnati, OH 45223-3085, USA tel: (513) 591-1905 Email - ghq [at] iww.org Website - www [at] iww.org |
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