Bonus: Triple Shot of Starbucks Workers
🕑 Added 2022-09-15 03:13:58 +0000 UTCWill and Chris host a round table of three organizers from across the country fighting to unionize Starbucks: Vic from Buffalo, Alisha from Oklahoma City, and Quentin from Portland, OR. They discuss the progress they’ve made at their respective locations, how they achieved it, and where they hope to go from there. We also discuss Starbucks’ retaliation methods (ranging from buffoonish to insidious), various legal challenges they’ve faced, and building bonds across the labor movement. Also, the most insane Starbucks orders they’ve ever seen.
Support Starbucks Workers United:
No Contract No Coffee pledge: https://crm.broadstripes.com/ctf/SJID0H
Solidarity Fund for SBWU partners by Coworker: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/starbucksworkersfund
DSA Labor Solidarity Fund: https://laborsolidarity.com
And here is Alisha’s Jacobin piece on Starbucks use of reproductive benefits as a cudgel against organizers: https://jacobin.com/2022/08/starbucks-abortion-transgender-health-care-promises-pr-stunt-union-contract
Comments
Baron
If you’re in the OKC, our DSA chapter has been trying to help with organizing efforts, you’re obv invited to join us in doing it!
Baron
Central OK IWW has been supporting the SBWU efforts here in OKC too!
Jim McKenna
I love the IWW.
Calum
If you're looking for help to unionize your workplace, try reaching out to your local IWW branch! Disappointed that the guest from Portland didn't mention that when discussing not going through WU.
Andrew Legan
great discussion
Polly Walnuts
I love my fellow Okie and her normal voice + y'all. I feel so seen, y'all. :)
Shivvy
Great ep, keep ‘em coming!
James Murray
Hey, another fired Starbucks worker here from a store that unionized in Metro Detroit. Solidarity to all the panelists. I want a second everything they said about being brought in to this effort through Bernie, through DSA, and not least of all through Chapo lol. I wish a little bit more time could have been spent on talking about the future of this effort and the strategy around it. The flip side to such a big emphasis being put on winning union elections is that the solidarity and organizing committees in a lot of these stores are not being developed as thoroughly as they might need to be. The next step for a lot of us is going to be having to hone our skills as organizers who can work through setbacks and difficulties within our own workplaces, and that's going to mean finding seasoned organizers to mentor us. Just like one panelist at the end said, EWOC and DSA are going to be crucial for that. We also should be keeping an eye out on the relationship between SBWU, Workers United, and SEIU. SEIU is better than most, but they are a service union at the end of the day, and we should't be surprised if this radical arm of their union is eventually going to be in conflict with the more liberal leadership.
Heavenly Father69
laborwave
etienne
I just had this idle thought that Bernie 2016 was about as far from Occupy Wall Street (2011) as we are today from Bernie 2016. Would you people say that Bernie 2016 left a better aftermath than Occupy? I think I can say yes. Occupy was such a damp squib and oxygen waster that even if all that's came out of Bernie is a bunch of people who learned the ropes of doing door knocking and union organizing, then it's a better outcome
Aaron Goad
Hey alisha. I'm a fellow okie too. Live only a few hours from your spot. Need anything,let me knew
Julie Baxter
Glad to live long enough to see unions come back.
etienne
we came to the negotiation table but some drunk fuck jumped from a pickup truck into it and broke it in half
Hope the bills mafia doesn't come after my comrades in Buffalo
Jose Jaimes-Ramos
That person's poor pancreas.
E G
Solidarity! Labor first. Always. Please keep the union episodes coming.
As a former Starbucks worker the TikTok drink trends was so awful to deal with. My worst memory though is having to add 16 packets of sugar to a large cappuccino for a regular every week.