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IWW Picket outside of Dupont Circle Starbucks

On Friday, December 21st, around a dozen area IWW members, overwhelmingly Starbucks Baristas, gathered outside of 1 of around 4 Dupont Circle Starbucks, braving the harsh winter elements in favor of abolishing the wage system. Their mission: reveal the Starbucks PR facade for what it is. Starbucks talks the social responsibility talk but they employ fewer with healthcare than even Walmart, so often the target of liberal scorn. A union members words are pertinent:

"I'm a mother of four and my Starbucks wage puts me well below the poverty line,"

On Friday, December 21st, around a dozen area IWW members, overwhelmingly Starbucks Baristas, gathered outside of 1 of around 4 Dupont Circle Starbucks, braving the harsh winter elements in favor of abolishing the wage system.

Their mission: reveal the Starbucks PR facade for what it is. Starbucks talks the social responsibility talk but they employ fewer with healthcare than even Walmart, so often the target of liberal scorn. A union members words are pertinent:

"I'm a mother of four and my Starbucks wage puts me well below the poverty line," said Suley Ayala, an IWW member at the Union Square Starbucks in New York City. "My kids and I are on Medicaid- there's no way I could afford Starbucks healthcare without a raise and a guaranteed 30 hours of work per week. Starbucks would never budge in the past but as a union member my voice cannot be ignored."

Their tactic: while 1/3 of US workers have Martin Luther King Day off, Starbucks employees are not even entitled to time and a half. Lip service Howard Schultz and his PR pundits would surely give MLK and the larger civil rights struggle would not be without hypocrisy: King having been assassinated at a rally of striking sanitary public works employees. Let's raise awareness around this glaring example of the reality behind the PR manufactured image and further devalue their PR facade.

Wobblies leafleted for hours in the frigid cold, eliciting many a huzzah and solidarity honk from passers by, quitting only when propaganda ran dry. Other actions have been planned for the weeks leading up to January 21st. Join us at our next general meeting on Wednesday, January 9th from 7-9pm in room 221 of MLK Library or stay tuned to this and other below telecommunications based resources for more info:

dc-iww.org
dciww (at) lists.riseup.net
starbucksunion.org
iww.org
571.276.1935