Submitted by x344543 on Thu, 03/08/2007 - 2:14pm
SOLIDARITY WITH VICTIMISED STARBUCKS WORKERS - FIVE STARBUCKS WORKERS SACKED FOR FORMING A UNION
For almost 3 years workers in Starbucks have been organising in their franchises in the USA. Starbucks have responded by waging a war of intimidation against the unionising workers. Already 5 employees have lost their jobs – Joseph Agins, Charles Fostrom, Evan Winterscheidt, Daniel Gross (Founder of the Starbucks Union) and Isis Saenz. This is a warning shot towards anyone attempting to improve work conditions. However, Starbucks workers have fought back: winning 2 workers their jobs back and more than $2000 in lost earnings. In New York City, workers have gained a 25% wage increase in just over 2 years, with similar raises in other areas they have organised.
Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 01/30/2007 - 5:19am
GET ORGANISED!
You’ll make a better life with the union than you ever could without one.
Baristas United is part of the Shop Workers Industrial Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The IWW union is controlled directly by its members and fights for better conditions for working people.
It is a fact that today, most coffee shop workers are unorganised. Wages and conditions may vary from company to company and from shop to shop, but whatever the set up, baristas are all subject to the whims of company strategies that seek to reap maximum profits from the labour of coffee shop workers, while generally paying poor wages to the baristas who make those profits possible.
Read More: (PDF File - warning, paper size conforms to European A4 dimensions, not US "letter" or "legal" sizes.)
Submitted by x344543 on Sun, 01/21/2007 - 8:20pm
As part of its ongoing solidarity campaign with sacked Starbucks workers in the US the Solidarity Federation, ex-loafers and London IWW held a picket of Greenwich and Blackheath Starbucks on Sat 20th Jan 2007.
Starbucks in South East London and the City will be picketted every fortnight thereafter. As a call is made for an end to the anti-union campaign waged by Starbucks and for the reinstatement of all unlawfully fired workers. In addition they are calling on Starbucks to give Ethiopia control over it's coffee.
They will be encouraging Starbuck workers to organise to make their jobs better and finally have a real independant voice at work. By organising a union, baristas in the US have seen wages increased, schedules stabilised and respect from the bosses.
Starbucks have consistently responded to workers organising with threats, intimidation, harassment and illegal firings and since Dec 2005 five workers in NYC have been sacked for engaging in protected union activity.
Submitted by x344543 on Wed, 01/03/2007 - 12:44pm
"Why I'm a wobbly" - Three members of the Industrial Workers of the World, from different political and working backgrounds, explain why they joined the IWW, and how they see their union.
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in Britain is growing. Freedom talked to three of its members about why they joined the union, its relationship with the anarchist movement and the relevance of the organization today.
Why did you join IWW?
Barbara: I am in an unusual employment situation. I am employed by elected representatives (members of the Scottish Parliament) who are also my comrades in the party of which I'm a member and activist. However there was no obvious trade union to be a member of. The vast majority of us were employed at the same time, shortly after the last Scottish Parliament elections and were encouraged to join the National Union of Journalists by a comrade. However I was unhappy about this as my work does not involve any journalism, and to be a member of the NUJ you have to state what percentage of your work is journalism. When I asked the full time organiser who came to recruit us, he was patronising and sexist - using phrases about me like "just a secretary". I challenged him but he only made it worse with more inappropriate comments. There was no way I could join the NUJ. I looked around and decided that I would join the IWW. I liked the idea that it's a union for all workers, no matter what kind of work you do. I also like the idea of one big union. Quite a few of my colleagues also joined the IWW as dual carders and we now have a job branch in the parliament.
Submitted by x344543 on Mon, 12/11/2006 - 3:52am
IWW Staff Report - Industrial Worker, January 2007
As Christmas approaches, 11 workers at the Scottish Parliament face broken contracts and unemployment in the new year, courtesy of the self-proclaimed champions of the Scottish working class, MSPs Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne.
They are both Members of Scottish Parliament, Sheridan being the only candidate for the Scottish Socialist Party elected when the parliament was founded in 1999, and Byrne one of five more who joined him after the second election in 2003.
Their party has been torn by a bitter dispute, centred around Sheridan's leadership, and a legal action he took against the News of the World when the paper made allegations about his private life. The rancour ended in Sheridan and Byrne's resignation from the SSP to found a new party called Solidarity.
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