Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines.

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.

Critics use a website and social media to portray the coffee giant as anti-union. The company denies being a bad employer.

By Patrick McDonnell - Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2009

Starbucks a hub of union-busting and worker exploitation?

Say it ain't so, Howard Schultz!

The Starbucks chief executive, who actively cultivates a socially progressive image, is in the cross hairs of a new-media campaign designed to bolster union representation at the retail giant and beyond. For five years, Starbucks has been the target of a limited but sometimes nasty unionization drive that has tarnished its reputation for high-minded benevolence.

But last week, Brave New Films in Culver City launched an ambitious "Stop Starbucks" offensive, including a website (stopstarbucks.com) featuring a four-minute video that was also posted on YouTube assailing Starbucks' treatment of workers, along with a petition demanding that Schultz "quit following Wal-Mart's anti-union example." By week's end, almost 12,000 had signed the petition, while nearly 40,000 had viewed the video, organizers said.

The anti-Starbucks onslaught also featured an attempted Twitter "hijacking" designed to undermine a Starbucks promotion in which contestants vied for prizes by submitting photos of themselves at Starbucks cafes. The virtual saboteurs forwarded the required "Twitpics" but hoisted signs blaring seditious mottos such as "I want a union with my latte" or Schultz "makes millions, workers make beans."

Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW. The image pictured below and 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 Damon Agnos - Seattle Weekly, Monday, May. 4 2009

The National Labor Relations Board laid the smack down on the wrist of Starbucks last week, siding with union organizers in finding that the coffee giant engaged in unfair labor practices at eight Minneapolis-area stores. The union said that Starbucks kicked visiting organizers out of their stores and told them they couldn't talk about the union, and also retaliated via disciplinary measures against employees who tried to organize.

The NLRB proposed a settlement, which Starbucks can accept or decline and then face a formal complaint before an administrative law judge. But the real kick is the employees' union. When I heard Starbucks employees were organizing, I automatically thought it would be under the umbrella of the SEIU, the fast-growing, aggressive, powerful union of service industry employees (local branches of which recently protested in front of the First Hill Bank of America).

Instead, though, the Starbucks Workers Union is organized under the Industrial Workers of the World (aka the Wobblies), the international union that was a powerhouse in the early 20th century, opposing World War I, calling general strikes, and facing violent repression from business groups and government. (A particularly notable episode occurred in Centralia.) Those who keep close tabs on labor (or coffee) news probably know that the IWW has been organizing in Starbucks and elsewhere, but for the casual observer, it's a trip to see their name in the news.

By Adam Turl - Socialist Worker, April 17, 2009

Disclaimer:  The International Socilaist Organization is not affiliated with the IWW or vice versa. 

WHEN BANK of America hosted a conference call to discuss how to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act, one executive used a new formulation: "the Starbucks problem."

His worry: workers might follow the example of Starbucks baristas and form their own unions without waiting for bigger "traditional" unions to organize them.

In the past five years, the Starbucks Workers Union (SWU)--a part of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)--has spread from one Manhattan store to win hundreds of members in New York City, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Grand Rapids, Chicago and beyond.

The SWU has made inroads among a section of the workforce--low-wage retail workers--that many unions have written off as too difficult to organize. Indeed, organized labor represents just 5 percent of workers in retail.

Since its formation, the SWU has won a series of important National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rulings and achieved gains for baristas on the job. Given the dire straits workers face today, if Corporate America is worried about the "Starbucks problem," then union members and supporters should take a close look at the SWU.

Clowning the Boss
By FW double jeff

Monday, February 16th The New York branch of the IWW Starbucks Workers Union held an energetic eight-hour picket outside two separate Starbucks locations. Originally planned as a “loose informal picket” outside the Union Square East Starbucks location, managerial stupidity and increased union-busting activity on the part of Starbucks turned it into a media circus and all night protest. Between the time when the picket was planned and when it actually took place, Starbucks decided to fire yet another union barista, Sharon Bell, from the 17th and Broadway location, conveniently located across the park from Union Square East.

The picket was called to protest the recent wave of Starbucks layoffs and draw attention to the refusal of Starbucks to pay severance, in spite of claiming in several press releases to the media that they will be providing severance pay to all laid off workers. The message was expanded to include the demand for the reinstatement of Sharon Bell and an immediate end to the illegal, unethical, nationally coordinated union-busting operations of Starbucks Coffee.