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.

by Joe Tessone

03/03/09- The time is 8:55 AM, 5 minutes before my alarm clock was supposed to sound I am awoken by a text message which says that Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO and #1 union buster, is having a press conference at the Oak and Rush Starbucks location. I jump out of bed, get dressed, and haul downtown. By the time I get there, the news cameras are gone. I look around and there he is sitting behind a merchandise wall in an interview with a few reporters. I order an Iced Tall Passion Tea… no need for caffeine, I’m fired up.

My old District Manager is in the cafe greeting customers and she asks me why I’m there. “Just getting a drink,” I respond. She then proceeds to make a call on her cell phone, obviously calling upper management. After I get my beverage, I find a seat, set my bag down, and I approach him.

From NBC New York:

Protesters call for "reinstatement of all fired union baristas"

With 10 or 15 current and former Starbucks colleagues by her side, former barista Sharon Bell stood dressed in a black winter parka holding a sign with the names of six recently fired baristas, including herself, and the words, "Rehire laid off baristas now!!!"

Last week, Bell was fired by Starbucks for what her managers said were issues relating to her tardiness and overall attendance, a charge she and her fellow union members adamantly deny.

Bell said the real reason for her "expresso termination" is recent activity with the Starbucks Workers Union. In a document given out at the protest, the union claims the popular coffee company "has illegally fired three baristas for organizing with the Starbucks Workers Union. Sheanel Simon, Sharon Bell and Neal Linder are excellent baristas and highly respected union members." The Union goes on to note that Simon has since been reinstated, while Bell and Linder remain unemployed.

by Diane Krauthamer / January 22, 2009

On a chilly Monday morning in midtown Manhattan, demonstrators displayed powerful messages of solidarity with food and retail workers, demanding fair wages and treatment while sending a prominent message to bosses: “You can’t keep the workers down, New York is a union town!”

On January 19, 2009, approximately 50 people braved the winter weather for the Industrial Workers of the World’s (IWW) annual “March Against Wage Slavery” in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Starting at 11 AM outside the Starbucks Regional Office on 5th Avenue in the shadows of the Empire State Building, a radical marching band joined by union members and supporters rallied alongside Starbucks baristas to demand that workers be paid a holiday premium of time and a half for working on MLK Day—the only national holiday in which workers do not receive premium pay.

IWW Delivers Cake to Mall Of America Starbucks Workers

Saturday June 26 was like any other busy Saturday at the Mall of America 1 Starbucks. A barista had called in sick during the morning shift, another had walked out in disgust the weekend prior. A Manager from another store was covering the shift of a barista who had been fired for union activity two weeks before. The store was shortstaffed, and the lines of customers were long.

But this Saturday was different. By 3:00, the grinding cacaphony of the frappuccino blenders died down, as a chorus of Solidarity Forever echoed through the Mall.

“When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run…”

Workers stepped back from their tasks to crowd around the front counter. Managers looked on in silence. About two dozen Wobblies streamed into the Mall of America 1 Starbucks to welcome the workers to the union… with a cake.

Coordinated Actions Across the U.S., Europe, and Latin America Could Be Largest Ever Against Coffee Chain

For Immediate Release:

IWW Starbucks Workers Union, StarbucksUnion.org

Grand Rapids , MI ( 06-30-2008 )- Union members and social activists are gearing up for what may be the largest, global coordinated action against Starbucks ever. Protesters will decry what they see as an epidemic of anti-union terminations by the world’s largest coffee chain. Starbucks and its CEO Howard Schultz have exhibited a pattern of firing outspoken union baristas ever since the advent of the IWW Starbucks Workers Union in 2004 and are demonstrating the same practice against the CNT union in Spain.

"On July 5th people around the world will show Starbucks that we, baristas along with our supporters, will have a voice and Starbucks discrimination and repression of our efforts will not go unchecked", said Cole Dorsey.

Grand Rapids firing comes in the midst of Unfair Labor Practice charges being investigated by the NLRB against Starbucks.

Grand Rapids, MI (06/06/2008)- Starbucks terminated a barista active in the IWW Starbucks Workers Union today as part of its ongoing effort to combat a growing movement of employees pushing for a living wage and secure work hours. The barista, Cole Dorsey, was fired after two years of service while he was coordinating a union recruitment drive at Starbucks stores in Grand Rapids. Starbucks' pretext for the illegal anti-union firing was that Dorsey was guilty of some months-old attendance infractions.

"Today I joined the growing number of baristas that Starbucks has fired in its relentless union-busting campaign," said Cole Dorsey. "Starbucks' disrespect for the right to join a union is appalling and absolutely will not stop our efforts to have a voice at work."

The New York Times

By COLIN MOYNIHAN
Published: January 22, 2008

The dramatic battles of the American labor movement were often fought in hazardous settings like the coal fields of Kentucky or the textile mills of Massachusetts.

In recent times, though, a different type of labor dispute has become familiar in New York, focused on the retail outlets that keep upscale customers fed and caffeinated.

And so it was that a crowd of about 50 people wrapped in scarves and bandannas against the cold gathered Monday morning outside a Starbucks at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 33rd Street.