Chapo Trap House - Bonus: Triple Shot of Starbucks Workers

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

Will 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

Hello, and welcome to a special b-b-bonus episode of CHAPO. Today, we have convened a special roundtable discussions of the efforts to unionize Starbucks, that classic establishment that brings the taste of the Palazzo Cafe to every neighborhood, in every corner of the world. And to do that, we have brought in a team of three union organizers spanning our great nation. So please welcome to the show. We have Vic from Buffalo. Say hi, Vic. Hi. We have Alicia from Oklahoma.

Hey. And Quentin from Portland, Oregon. Hey. I'm also here. It's Will. Oh, yeah. Will is also here. We're not going to pull a classic Matt-style interview where it's 40 minutes into the interview. 15 minutes into the episode. Yeah, he says one word. So yes, Will is here as well. So I just kind of wanted to start this by saying, I know this is a very broad prompt,

but could you guys each kind of fill us in on how the unionization effort is going in each of your locations, both your specific stores that you're working at and kind of the city location that you're based out of in general. And we'll start with you, Vic. Okay. So I'm from the East Robinson location in Buffalo, New York. We were the nine store in the city to unionize. And we hit 10 a couple of weeks after. So Buffalo's half unionized and it's been going really well. They did fire me about two months ago.

We'll get into that. Other than that, it's been going great. That was not going great. But my coworkers have done a great job of like carrying on the union at my store and fighting off the tactics that they're doing now that I'm gone. And then Buffalo as a whole is doing really well. We're very cohesive, very doing a lot of stuff together, planning a lot of actions. It's good. It's good. Alicia.

Hey, so I'm from Oklahoma City and I'm one of the three unionized stores in Oklahoma City. And we were the first ones who filed and organized, but we were the last to win our election. I think Starbucks disputed and contested, I think about like five of our ballots. And so it took like the NLRB and Starbucks and us about like three months to get those counted. But we finally won our election. And so right now we're just kind of like working on getting reorganized and dealing with Starbucks's, you know, union busting and whatnot. And then in Oklahoma, it's been pretty slow with like organizing. So we're really hoping that we'll pick up.

And other than that, it's going pretty well. Like we haven't had any severe union busting here so far yet. Great. And Quinn? Yeah. So I organized the first shop in Portland. Well, in the Portland Metro, it's in Beaverton. Back in February and was pushed out shortly thereafter. So I'm just kind of coordinating like regional organizing efforts at this point.

My store is completely fucked. We affectionately call it the non-union union shop in Portland. They eventually won their count three months later. But all of the rest of our stores are in a much better position. And just in general, could you guys maybe walk us through a little bit of what it was like going from the union being just an idea that one of you had in your stores to it going to an actual vote in the stores that you worked at. Like how you were able to develop the idea, how we were able to get your partners as they're called, organize around you and how you were able to petition for an actual vote. Buffalo, we knew about it. We knew about it before it went public.

Because Buffalo was one of the, was where the first unionized Starbucks was, right? Yeah. The first one that went to a vote. Yeah. So we all knew about it. We knew Elmwood was, which was the first, we knew Elmwood was going to go public with it. And a lot of us were really scared. So my store was actually probably the most anti-union store in Buffalo for a very long time.

And then in New York, when Omicron started getting really bad, we had our mask mandate reinstated and corporate told us that we weren't allowed to enforce it. So customers were coming into the cafe, not wearing a mask. And we have a lot of immunocompromised partners at work. So it kind of started with me and one other barista reaching out to the union and making them take us out to dinner and just grilling them about it. We were like, who's in it? What are you trying to do here? What's going on? How do I do this?

And then I went back to my store and it was, Buffalo had been hit so hard with the union busting that it was very easy to look at a co-worker after a really bad day or a manager saying something just absolutely horrible to you. And be like, do you want to sign a union card? Because we both know that we deserve a lot better than this. And once we started signing, we filed within a like probably a month, month and a half of me starting to collect cards. Nice. The other two of you guys, did you find that the added pressures put on by COVID were a big motivator for moving this forward? Yeah, absolutely. For sure.

That's why I, one of the reasons I wanted to organize and my co-worker who actually reached out to Starbucks Workers United, they reached out right after a partner with a partner was out sick with COVID and we get like five days of like COVID quarantine pay. And then after that, if you don't have symptoms, you're expected to come back to work. But they were still testing positive on the rapid test, which meant they were contagious. And so they needed someone to cover their shift because they still technically like had to come in. And so that was like the, I guess like the final straw motivator that made them reach out. And I quit kind of after the pandemic and came back to Starbucks because I didn't feel safe working there anymore while unvaccinated. And so, yeah, that was a big reason and it's still a big reason as we slowly lose even more COVID protections.

It was similar for us as well. I'm a DSA member, so I've always had the idea that we need a union at Starbucks, but was obviously very inspired by Buffalo and then Arizona and Boston as well. But really the thing that led to all of us start talking about it at my shop was we had like a really bad winter season in the Northwest. And we knew that there'd be a lot of snow and ice coming up and our boss sent out this memo in our tips that week. And it said like, you need to plan A, B and C for getting to work. Like if you don't want to drive, you can Uber or Lyft, you don't want to do that. You can take public transportation, but then you need to leave multiple hours early to be able to get there on time. And if you don't want to do that, then you can stay over with your coworkers and carpool.

And this was like in the middle of a huge spike and all of us were like already uncomfortable with COVID. So it's like, fuck that. Very quickly got people interested and got 70% of cards signed in the next couple of weeks. Make sure that your team of sled dogs are well fed before taking them out to work. I was going to say, we don't have terrible winter weather here, but we've been having those like pretty bad ice storms from like the polar vortex or whatever where it gets into the negatives. And thankfully we got a few days off, but like once like the highways clear up, even though the like neighborhoods are still really awful weather, we're still expected to come in.

And it being Oklahoma and a tornado valley states a couple of months ago in April, we were getting tornado sirens on and off and how to go into the bathroom to go hiding. And I was like, okay, well, can we like go home because there's like a lot more storms coming and I just don't feel safe working. And I was told, no, we still have to like stay to close the store. Even though my car was just sitting out in the parking lot, even after like the like it was a long line of storms. So even after the siren stopped, there's still like more like tornado storms coming. And we couldn't even like leave to go home to like somewhere safer. We still had to stay at work.

I mean, those are some pretty profound like aha moments about like the first time thinking like, hey, we could probably use a union here. I mean, just outside of just, you know, typical complaints about, you know, management really needs to be treating us better. But I'm interested. Quinton, you mentioned that you're a DSA member and like you kind of always had the idea that Starbucks needs a union. But I'm wondering before you guys started working at Starbucks, what was your experience with labor unions or your familiarity with organizing? Was this something that you brought into this job or is this something that you learned by experience or like because of the situation created by the working conditions at Starbucks? Aliza, go. I've never had experience with unions at all before. But during the 2020 campaign, I was volunteering with the Bernie campaign.

And you know what's funny? I was like a chapeau listener then and y'all kept talking about getting people to organize or like go out and I was like, whatever, I'll just show up and do it. And, you know, I kept organizing up until the Super Tuesday. But I will say learning how to like talk to at least strangers then about something I was super passionate about and, you know, like explaining why they needed to vote this way and like why this will be better for them. I think that was like a bit like a big learning opportunity or exposure, just kind of like learning how to like wing it. And then the rest was kind of just like learning on the job. Yeah. So similarly, I came into labor through the Bernie campaign, came into DSA through the Bernie campaign, came into chapeau through the Bernie campaign. And I did phone and text banking in 2020. I remember where I was on Super Tuesday.

I was making phone calls. And yeah, I mean had absolutely no experience or exposure to labor unions before any of that. Most people I've talked to within SBWU, it's the same way it's like we came to this through Bernie, which is why it's really profound and surreal. Like every time I see him giving a speech and he talks about Starbucks workers united or he joins the picket line in Boston, I'm like, what, what the fuck, like this is so surreal. Yeah. My dad, when I was really young, was a member of the Electrical Workers Union. So he's like, I knew a little bit about unions and then in college, I majored in history. So I like still kind of knew about them.

But I kind of thought that they were like, not outdated, but I was like, oh, you know, like, nobody really has a union anymore, not in Starbucks. So like actually sitting down and talking with organizers from Elmwood was like the first real exposure I had to unions that wasn't me being four years old or in like a textbook. And I guess like I'm I'm I'm really a Starbucks patron. But like, okay, like before the consciousness of like, hey, we need to organize, organize a union to deal with some of these problems. What is the experience of working at Starbucks like and what are some of the problems created by management that like would be alleviated by a union? You can start with Vic. Okay. I when I was fired, I had been working at Starbucks for five years.

And I think that in organizing people have asked me like, like, oh, like it's just the union busting, right? It's not Starbucks has never lived up to the public image that it has that it treats its employees. Well, I and when it the campaign started in Buffalo, they told us like, oh, don't vote for the union. Like this is merely a problem in Buffalo. And it's just because you were really bad managers and we didn't know that all of this was happening. But we're all here to fix it now. But like seeing Mesa and Boston was another thing that kind of pushed me to organize because I knew that these problems were really bad in Buffalo, but it couldn't just be Buffalo.

Like I knew it was something wrong with the Starbucks system. I've had managers, you know, like insist that we work sick. I've had managers put us in very unsafe conditions and not care literally at all. I've been like stuck in snowstorms at work and they tell me like, if I can get here, you can get here and then they don't get there. But I have to get there. The like the understaffing somebody's doing two or three jobs at once and they they just do not care what you do or what you go through. As long as you hit the numbers and you hit that drive through time, that's all that matters to them. And so like having this union and organizing your store, it was empowering for me to be able to be like, oh, like I'm organizing like, what are you going to do to me?

Fire me. But like I felt like when I was organizing, I like would walk up to my my manager and I was like, you need to do something about this. Like you need to do something about this immediately because we all know our rights now will walk out like. So I remember when when all of our organizing kicked off a lot of our union siblings on the east coast, the Buffalo people. I very much remember the messaging being like we organize because we love our jobs and like, you know, all respect that is warranted. Definitely don't agree with that. Like it's always stuff working at Starbucks. Like customers are awful.

Managers are awful. I even remember like after we went public and we started noticing union busting in our store. Some of my partners were like, you know, this hasn't gotten any worse. They've always treated us like this. And I'm like, yeah, that's kind of the problem is that union busting is just standard behavior at a company like Starbucks, which is so insane when it's like such a, you know, progressive company. And Howard Schultz is just a progressive leader. It's ridiculous. And I think like for a lot of us, we wanted to organize because we realized something about Starbucks.

There was a moment of radicalization. But I think for even more of us, we've just always known that we needed this and it was our partners, our comrades in Buffalo actually taking that leap and doing it that allowed us to do this. I know that was the case for me and for a lot of other people I've talked to. I agree. I've been working at Starbucks for four years, but I remember like even before Buffalo became a thing, I remember thinking like I wish like this could be like a unionized job. But at the time I was like, it's like a fast food job, like there's so many like small different stores, like it would be impossible to like ever organize like the fast food industry. And so seeing Buffalo make it happen. And then even then I was still very doubtful, like I followed it, like, because you know, I was involved after like Bernie, you know, listening here and then also I was a DSA member, but I was like, but Oklahoma like we could, that would never happen here.

And so just like seeing it happen is really, really cool. But I was going to say our store was a little bit more difficult to organize because unlike a lot of y'all, we had a really good store manager. And so people are like, well, I don't feel exploited. Like our manager takes care of us. So I'm just scared of change. And that's kind of like the current feel as well. They're like, well, I'm just scared of like losing our store manager or quitting. Like there's a lot of like thinking like all of your problems can be fixed by a good manager, which like that does solve a lot of them.

But like our biggest problems and my biggest problems were with, you know, COVID were with like understaffing. Like you said, we're like having to come to work and stay at work during like hazardous situations. And, you know, just like really like slow benefit increases. Like the only reason we got like $15 minimum wage increases was because of a flow organizing. Other than that, we would have stayed at like 12 or something. Those are all really interesting stories. I'm very interested to hear how much the communication is self reinforcing. Like the more you get to hear about this from other people around you, the more you get to talk and see from other people across the country, how much it allows people in disparate locations to make those kinds of leaps on their own.

But I'd like to move on to kind of where it stands now and where you guys think the progress is going from here. What are the next steps? So as of today, I think I saw nearly 240 stores have voted with 80% of the votes coming in for a majority of unions. So that 240 number is the 80% that have voted majority union. And the boards, the Starbucks Rehears Board have filed 32 complaints compiling 115 unfair labor practices with the NLRB against Starbucks. So at the point where this is kind of a mature movement, like you have a number of stores in it, this is like a going concern that is happening. And now you are actively fighting against Starbucks. So I was just, where do you guys see the next steps for the Starbucks workers movement and where you stand now and what you're looking for in the near horizon of the legal challenges and the other various challenges around getting more stores on board?

I guess I'll start out. So where I'd like to see things going, I'm pretty excited to see because we're our national bargaining as you know, finishing up our like proposals and whatnot. And so pretty soon we're, we're actually kind of recently we've been trying to get Starbucks to come to the table like nationally so we can at least come together for like a national contract. And, you know, after that have, you know, accommodations for stores that need them or like other local proposals, but like the goal right now since we'll have the most bargaining power as like a collective body is to come together nationally. And so right now Starbucks is still refusing and still wants to bargain at each store on its own completely separately, which does not give us a lot of collective power and negotiations. And so I'm looking forward to Starbucks taking us more serious. I mean, I think Starbucks does take all of you very seriously, but not as a union. I think it takes you as a threat. As a threat. They're, I think they're, they view this as a like, you know, like a dagger pointed at the heart of their entire, their entire mode of making profit and, you know, ringing work out of young people and, you know, making sure that everyone can have a coffee anytime and they want in this country.

I was also going to add, while organizing has slowed down, I do hope we can, as more tangible progress happens, it'll pick up, especially in the NLRB cases. I know we've definitely slowed down the NLRB even slower than it's already been because it's extremely underfunded and like funding has been frozen. I'm also looking forward to the NLRB ruling on some like pretty important cases, because right now one of the most effective union busting tactics Starbucks has done so far outside of straight up firing people is offering benefits to non union stores while excluding them to union stores and saying that they can't do like they can't provide benefits to them, even if we like are requesting to like accept them because of their union and right now the NLRB has filed a complaint saying that was illegal and Howard Schultz himself like needs to do a video like apologizing, which would be really cool. So the hearing for that is October 25, and I think once people see that like what Starbucks doing is actually illegal like we can say it's illegal but like if they're still doing it like they're offering a new round of exclusionary benefits but I think seeing like actual legal progress will help us a lot. Since Alicia brought it up, I actually have this story here from Reuters. This is just yesterday. Starbucks adds benefits for non union US workers ahead of investor day. It just says Starbucks announced a new student loan repayment tools and a savings account program for all US employees who are not union members the company said Monday amid a growing union drive and a soaring demand for coffee. Yeah, like as you mentioned the NLRB as you know roundly decide ruled that like this kind of thing you cannot give benefits to non union stores and deny them from union ones. This is illegal. The question is but like Starbucks is ignoring this as they have ignored many, many, many steps in this process. It is just chosen to just blackball you out entirely. And I think the question is now with this current Supreme Court whether like corporate America like everything is on the

table now. And if they can just get something in the federal court system, they're going to roll the dice on that every time. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I was talking about this with a comrade in Portland the other day. And we absolutely think that they're just going to keep upping the ante in terms of lately violating federal labor law because the dream is to get the National Labor Relations Act in front of the Supreme Court. I mean if they can just gut it at the federal level through the courts that's what they're going to do. And I mean Howard Schultz is already evil but especially so for just like playing into the strategy of the right which is to just gut regulation at every level through the courts. I absolutely think that's the plan. I was particularly struck by this exact thing that they started offering these benefit these non union benefits pretty immediately or like early in the spring early in the winter. And there were several complaints filed against it and it was already in dispute with the NLRB and I was struck by them. Yeah, not only continuing on it but in fact doubling down by announcing it as an official strategy in the midst of a dispute at their investor meeting yesterday I believe. So yeah, just to add on that it doesn't seem like they are feeling meek or sheepish about embracing these already disputed strategies. And it bears repeating that Howard Schultz was going to be Hillary Clinton's Secretary of Labor had she won the 2016 election. I always think about that it's it's so so funny and he even ran for president himself back in 2016. So we are president right now. We used to be a proper country. The things we could have had.

I was just going to add to that like it just shows how like even though the NLRB is supposed to be this like great institution and it and it, it does act that way, you know, sometimes, but like, if it takes half a year or a year to get like these violations or to like go to like federal court or anything like Starbucks could effectively like kill the camp which is what they're trying to do to kill the campaign and then just like deal with the slap on the wrist later. But I don't know it just shows how much the more power the NLRB needs and I know Joe Biden has so many issues like the one good thing about him is him, at least in word, you know, being pro union union Joe or whatever. So I do hope at least that sympathy for unions, hopefully does something that can at least like slow Starbucks down before, you know, they're very blatant with it. Our lawyer told me that my firing was very convenient for him, because it was, they fired me less than 24 hours after the NLRB region three and Buffalo announced that they were going to. Had filed for an injunction, and we're taking Starbucks to court on like 200 unfair labor practice charges. And like within 24 hours, they just fired me and my lawyer was like, this is really good. This is good. Thank you. This is really fit into my schedule. They don't care. And I'm going to be great for us. Okay. While we're on the topic of retaliation, obviously, this benefits thing is a particularly sinister version of this. And Alicia, I want to talk about your piece and Jacob in a second on this topic. But are there any other notable retaliation tactics that you guys have encountered along these lines? I mean, every time we talk about unions, it's grimly funny to me that it seems like no matter how sophisticated or unsophisticated you imagine the corporate body, they seem to roll out the same dusty old playbook in every situation. You know, outside influence agitators, you know, we're a family. We're a family. Yeah, these people are coming in to be a be a third in our relationship without without our consent, you know,

it's just a poly cool. Okay. Yes. Can you guys speak to any other of those interesting or maybe not interesting tactics that you guys have encountered in terms of retaliation or counter strategies. So for us in Portland, when I first reached out to workers united, they passed along like this info packet like organizing 101 here's everything you need to organize your Starbucks. And it laid out step by step what the Starbucks anti union campaign looks like. And I was very humored to see that once we filed, they did exactly that step for step there was nothing nuanced, nothing was new. You know, even in situations where it didn't make sense or didn't fit our store, it's just you can tell they're reading from a script. My store manager tried telling me a couple days after we had filed, I asked, you know, Have you been coached on anything and he said, No, you didn't even give me time to talk to our lawyers. That's definitely not the second we announced. But we it has gotten more just ridiculous as we've gone on we have this one store in Portland that one of their organizers was fired a couple months ago they won on strike a couple weeks after that. And we turned out a bunch of DSA members to the picket line that day. And actually the regional director showed up to like work behind the bar to keep the store open because the whole store was out on strike and they didn't want to lose out on a day of profits. And she put out like an internal memo to partners all across Northwest Oregon a couple days later. And she said that she gave us a shout out she said the Democratic Social showed up for like a violent rally. It's just like it, it gets, it's so unserious the way that they do it. I mean, it's obviously serious when people get fired, I don't want to belittle that at all. But the way that they go about doing it is just very humorous.

It's very archaic. And now as I see more and more, both independent and new organizing efforts prop up, every single other company just takes the page from the Starbucks playbook. It's the same exact shit that all of them are saying the same tactics that all of them are using. It's not like it's boring come up with something better. I mean, I think the sad thing is that it doesn't necessarily have to be novel or clever or even make sense when you are, you know, a billion, a multi billion dollar corporation. Like it's just like, you know, it doesn't like, you know, you're not concerned about looking foolish. Or because like what matters is stopping your employees from having a union. At least in the olden times we had Pinkerton's like bring back the Pinkerton's. I was going to say so our store like I feel very privileged in Oklahoma City where no one, I don't want to, you know, knock on wood no one's been like fired or like, you know, written up yet thankfully we have like pretty pretty good managers here. But I've heard some crazy stuff like I've heard that like, if we become a union that they'll be able to drop test us. And so, you know, it's Starbucks so that way. So you're saying that you would not have a workforce.

Yeah, there would we put that in our contract they're like no it's it's going to happen like that's and it's almost like well that's what I've heard they do at UPS and then we heard that from like management to and then there's someone who is like going to be a part of like a ballet union and they were told that they couldn't be a part of two unions. That's apparently a thing. That's clearly not. I was told that our store manager wouldn't be able to work on the floor anymore if we were a union because they wouldn't be a part of the union. And after we first filed I was just really surprised at like how unprepared they were when we had our like captive audience meeting with our district managers and, you know, they told us like Buffalo already had an agreement and a contract to that was like in place and we had to go to the LREB website and then they just kept telling me like any question I had they just kept telling me to like Google it. Like that was their. Not my job to educate you. Because they were saying they like a common fear tactic they use is just to use like this the Starbucks Canada contract where they enter Canada contract they agreed to not transfer or like work at other stores because that works in their situation but they were like.

Oh, the Buffalo store already agreed to that and I was like, I haven't heard that and they're like yeah you can Google it and I pulled out my phone and I Googled it and I showed him and I was like that's so weird like nothing showing up on Google. And they're like, oh, oh, I'll have to find out more information for you so I literally pulled out my phone and Googled it but it didn't work. We had so much fun in Buffalo, we weren't even interested in unionizing and it was so fun to like mess with them. Truly they would send in they we got like Ross and Williams Howard Schultz came to Buffalo and gave a very uncomfortable speech. The room was excited. And the day that he came Ross and went to all the stores and she was like partners we have a very special guest coming tonight and I literally was like Howard Schultz. She was like. Yeah Howard was uncomfortable get your hopes up if you thought it was going to be Josh Allen. I know I was like you guys are not pulling anybody big the bills are union they're not. So they were they were fun they would send in like, like ops, ops coaches to every single store and again like my coaches. Yeah they're like, they're called ops coaches I have no idea what they do.

Are they are they for the are they for the like managers to train against like this kind of thing. Best I can tell is like they do how your store should be laid out and like how the flow of the drinks needs to go and how you streamline the process, which is very fun because exactly none of them can actually make a drink. So my store we started doing this thing where they would come in and we'd be like, Oh, like, oh my God thank God you're here we're so understaffed and they would they would do this thing where they're like what can I do to help you. So we'd be like oh my God we're so understaffed. Do you know how to make drinks and some of them would be like yeah and I was like great. My partner's been on the bar for like an hour and a half solo and she needs a half so how about you go take over for her, and she's going to go take a 10. And you're good though you know how to make drinks like you're a partner go crazy. And they didn't like that so they actually stopped coming to my store. Because I made her make drinks.

There's retaliation in terms of blatantly lying to you there's retaliation in terms of the you know law firms that they have on retainer to deal with this kind of thing. But there's also retaliation in terms of deliberately fostering an unsafe work environment. Now I saw I saw accounts a few months back of Starbucks locations literally removing the rubber mats behind the counter from stores that had sought to unionize have you seen anything like that or experienced anything similar. I don't know why the rubber mats are so important. So they're there so you don't slip and fall because everything behind a Starbucks bar is wet. They took mine through them out. And then we have we had so many like they're called support managers they're like managers flown in from across the country to literally surveil you. So we had so many of them that one of them threw them out the other one ordered new ones.

And then he threw them out the other one threw them out again. So the high level coordination here is a waste of money. Yes. Something something to be wanted. This is all very fun. And like the buffoonishness of the retaliation is always entertaining to me. But I would like to talk from it with Alicia about a recent article that you wrote for Jacob in to go back to this benefits situation. You recently wrote an op-ed for Jacob and on Starbucks offering travel reimbursement for abortion services and gender affirming care.

And then immediately using that as a cudgel for the anti for the unionizing stores which seems particularly sinister in the wake of the Dove's decision. I wonder if you could go into that a little bit. Yeah, it's definitely incredibly sinister enough to piss me off enough to like write an op-ed and I don't I don't write. But I had to get my anger out somewhere. Yeah. So I remember seeing the announcement or hearing about it. And then of course, like right under it, there's this little blurb that they put in all of our new little benefits announcement saying, you know, we can't promise benefits at, you know, stores that unionize. It was like very like unclear and like wishy-washy, but it was the intention was very clear to, you know, just show union stores that they can just punish us continually by not offering us the same benefits.

And so I remember, you know, hearing my coworkers being like really sad that that our store probably wouldn't be covered. I called our partner resources line, which is like our version of like HR and I was like, Hey, does this like cover us? I really want to know for our partners. And all they could tell me it was that they had not been advised on that. And I was like, Well, this is like partner benefits. Like this is a partner benefit. Like how have you not been advised on it? You know, I was very, very confused because that was like, they would transfer me to the person that, you know, like handle the like abortion benefits and would like, if I needed that, they would help set it up, but they had not been advised and could not give me an answer,

whether it like covered union stores or not. And so all of us, you know, knowingly thought that it wouldn't cover union stores. And there was a, I think it was Bon Appetit magazine that were writing an article, you know, basically saying what you had said that Starbucks is using abortion, the abortion ban as like a union busting tactic. And it was pretty harsh on Starbucks and they reached out for comment. And then Starbucks says, Oh no, it'll cover all stores. And so suddenly once they're getting bad press about it, it starts covering all stores. So yeah, technically it does cover all now, but the way it was rolled out was particularly insidious and they really had to be like pushed for like the bad press backlash that was happening for them to kind of change their stance on it. So Alicia is the idea here that they're like, you know, Starbucks is a progressive company and like post-dobs are like, yeah, we're going to we're going to provide reproductive health care for all our employees in every state.

But then in those states of which the Dobs decision has made abortion illegal, then to just be like, yeah, that's there if you don't sign a union card. Yeah, essentially that's exactly what they were like, pretty much everyone's interpretation of what had happened. And again, it doesn't actually cover all employees. It only covers employees that are under like Starbucks's health insurance plan, which you have to work like an average of 20 hours a week for at least three months and then also like pay into like basically buy insurance through Starbucks. To have these protections. And so if you're working less than that or your hours are getting cut or you have insurance through somewhere else, like you're not covered at all under it. Yeah, it seems like the confusion is part of the strategy here. Definitely.

Yeah, I was reading this New York Times article that was talking about this from the Times. The wage policy is about a similar policy on increased wages that was then post actively reverted for various stores here. I'll just read this. The wage policy appears to have sewn confusion with some employees briefly receiving a pay increase that was then withdrawn. Colin Cochran, a worker in a store near Buffalo that initially voted to unionize and then voted against the union in a rerun election decided this month, provided pay subs showing that his 1628 hourly wage has increased to 1677. The first week of August when Starbucks began pay increases nationwide, but Mr. Cochran's pay stub for the second week of August showed an hourly pay dropping back to 1628. So it's digging around with the, you're literally month to month, even week to week pay stub in my new response to these unionizing decisions as a way. And then when you, as it sounds like when you call the partner hotline or whatever it's called having some kind of deniability of like, oh, we don't know what's going on.

That would be a mistake when it's seemingly clearly put in response to unionizing activities. Yeah. And something else they did that was really shitty and was very not very welcome at my store because we had won our election at the end of July finally. And so Starbucks announced the $15 minimum wage increases, I think back in October. Basically, effectively, it would still apply to stores that had unionized after October, just not like the initial Buffalo ones. But for some reason, no idea at all, they changed it. So all the non union stores would get their $15 minimum wage increase August 1st, but like union stores would get at August 29th. So a lot of my partners were very, very, very pissed off that all the other stores in our area were getting their $15 minimum wage increases on August 1st, but we had to wait four weeks until August 29th, just for being union.

And it was, even though we had just won our election, like it made a lot of people pretty bummed to find out that we would be excluded for that. I was wondering what you guys could tell me about Workers United, the organization that the Starbucks is unionizing under. Have you guys had much interaction with them? What are you, you know, what was the relationship between the individual Starbucks unions and Workers United? You know, are they providing, you know, strategy tactics for you guys? Yeah, so Starbucks Workers United is like directly under Workers United, so just like a sub union under that. And we work really closely with it. Like pretty much like since the beginning, they've provided us like tons of staff. They help a lot, especially like working with like national bargaining, and they help organize stores in certain areas where there's like joint boards.

I know they have like a lot of unions in like the northeast, like in Buffalo, I think some other coffee shops are unionized with them. And I think it was Richard Benzinger, who was like really involved in the beginning and I met him, he's super nice and great. And yeah, I think they, Starbucks Workers United in Buffalo, they wanted like a smaller union that would like kind of pay attention to them. And also one that had experience already with unionizing coffee shops. So I think it was a good fit there. Yeah, so a couple of years ago, Workers United organized a local chain, it's called Spot, I think it's just in Buffalo in Rochester. And Richard and Jazz Brzak, who moved Buffalo and like got a job at the Elmwood store, both helped out a lot with that campaign. And that's how they met. His name's Gary, he works at the Rochester Regional Joint Board for Workers United. And Gary has been like, he used to be the best labor leader ever.

He pays for everything, he makes sure that all we have to worry about is organizing stores. And he cares about all of us so much, he drove in like an hour for my vote count just to be there. And another thing that Starbucks is doing is once you get fired, they fight you like very hard in unemployment court. So like not only am I fighting them with the NLRB and like that trial starting at the end of the year for my firing, I also have to fight them in unemployment court. So wait, what's the argument about why you, because you're fired, you don't get unemployment? Yeah, because I violated company policy. Okay, so that's, you wouldn't count for receiving unemployment benefits?

Yeah, so now I have to take them to unemployment court. And Workers United has been so supportive through that, like they helped me find a lawyer and she's fantastic. They're, you know, they're providing me all the support I need. Yeah, I can't say enough great things about Workers United and like specifically like Gary and the Rochester Regional Joint Board have done amazing things for this campaign. I will add that, you know, I share a lot of the praise for Workers United, but I think one thing is that it's been pretty uneven development in terms of where our stores are getting a lot of support from union staff. I know like in the Pacific Northwest, there have been a lot of us who have been fired or in my case pushed out who aren't necessarily getting all of the support from Workers United that we are seeing in other areas. And so I think a large part of that has to do with most of Workers United's like joint boards, which is what they call their locals, most of that is in the Northeast. So it makes sense that there's more staff there.

But there are a few of us out on the West Coast who have been fired or pushed out and like I was unemployed for a couple months after being pushed out. And I was like texting my staff for every day like, Hey, do you have a job for me yet? Like, can you get me a job or like I already do this work. Can you just give me a stipend or something? And so I think that I do think like as we grow in size, that makes it possible for Workers United to have more staffers on the West Coast. But I think it is pretty clear that like this definitely got larger than Richard and the staff initially intended it to. And it grew a lot faster than they thought it would, which means like in a lot of ways, we're kind of outpacing the infrastructure that we do have to be able to support workers, which is also exciting though, because, you know, it's going to reach a stage where like, you know, we start getting dues dollars and we're able to hire more organizers and whatnot.

And obviously that's down the road. We need a contract before we start paying dues. But I do think that the uneven development is a result of how quickly this has grown. And now that new filings have slowed down a little bit, we're kind of being able to catch up a little bit more and get more organized along the way. And then I add back in, my region is exactly the same. Like we have a joint board technically, but there's no organizers there because there's not really any Workers United, you know, development here, at least before us. And so we basically just like the Pacific Northwest kind of had to like organize our own region as like Starbucks workers. But like with national stuff, they've been super helpful.

But yeah, so like regional wise, it's been difficult. And I also wanted to add in Workers United put together a million dollar strike fund for all of us from the other unions that they have, like using, they've all like voted to use their dues to put that together for us. And so I feel really appreciative for that. Because I know a lot of unions don't have access to something like that. I was wondering if you guys could speak to the responses from local media and maybe the local politicians around you, you guys. I'm imagining that the response from say Portland, Oregon, local media to a or Buffalo to a the idea of a unionization effort is a little different than central Oklahoma. I want to hear Alicia go first because I'm curious because actually our local media response has not been good at all. We're getting cut out of a lot of stuff. So I'm curious to hear how it is and OKC. It's definitely been difficult.

I do want to say as I don't want to necessarily say it's been getting better, but I think just with like extensive like pressure of like the Starbucks campaign also growing nationally. There's been more like pressure to cover it. But I remember at first like we were the first door to like file and go public. And I remember sitting out like getting like a whole like press list of like everyone in Oklahoma. And I was like, yeah, like everyone's going to report on this. But only one local news place that was just this small local independent website called like OKC free press was the only people that were interested. And once they put out their article about us. That's when other news org started covering us. And we had the first election and we had a lot of like media coverage because it was the first election everyone showed up. And then for the second one it really dried up and then for the third one we didn't really have any big like press covering it again.

And it wasn't until like, you know, certain like I've had to like make relationships with like, you know, certain like local media people here where I know they're very interested in covering it and they have to keep like pestering their bosses over and over. And finally, like two of them had gone and able to like get a story through and get us like some coverage. But it's it's still been really tough. We did get a lot of local media coverage whenever we have a Labor Day rally at the Capitol and I think they told me because it was like a slow news day and nothing else was happening. But it was really the first time that we had like all of the local news out there and like them covering it like multiple times a day and like covering like the whole segment and not just like one sentence like a two like a five second clip of one of us. And so that was really great. But yeah, it's been a struggle like I've been trying to get into like an interview with like the Oklahoma and like our big like newspaper here but you know it's very, very tricky. But the people who have like consistently covered us like the local independent media that is pro union like they've been super consistent but yeah getting like the actual press has been quite hard. And I mean for us in Portland it's not necessarily that we're not getting coverage it's that when we do there's always just like one quote from one of our organizers and it's you know it's something like Starbucks should stop union busting. That's what we're quoted as saying like it that's true but we have more to say than that.

And especially in Portland, like, you know, my so my store was the first that organized and from the very beginning Portland DSA has been like a critical ally in terms of organizing like many of our stores would not be at the point that they are without support from DSA. And I know it's similar in other parts of the country like I know Buffalo DSA has been really supportive. But like, there's also a drawback to that in terms of local media like because DSA is such a like central presence at a lot of our events. Local media in Portland does not like covering Portland DSA so we're actually getting cut out of a lot of stuff just because of like, you know, socialists are there so we're not going to give them quotes or we're not going to post pictures or whatever. And that's been really frustrating we have like the Oregonian which is our big state paper showed up to one of our strikes. And I was the person that gave the quote and I identified myself as a DSA member and an SWE member and they have not showed back up to another one of our events since then. So, I mean like this is not particular to Starbucks like, you know, of course the media doesn't want to cover like especially class struggle unions, which I think that is the thing that delineates this is in most of our stores that I've talked with. You know, like it's a lot of younger people who are involved in this movement and you know younger people tend more progressive more radical. And so a lot of us are running this like explicitly as we are a class struggle union. And that this is a lot of people off I mean including other local unions like not everybody's into that so they're definite drawbacks to that but I mean obviously the right way to do it so.

What seems like as like, you know, as labor actions become gain more visibility and like the hottest, you know, the hottest part of that right now in America is in the service economy in things like Starbucks. But it seems like as they become more visible there always seems to be this like the introduction of this meta debate about like who really counts as working class, or who really deserves a union and I think like Starbucks for the media and for people who are opposed to it. I think Starbucks provides a particularly soft target because this idea like oh you're all like college kids or like you're spoiled brats or like you're not really union or working class or something. I mean, have you encountered that or do you have any thoughts on this kind of like who gets to have a union who counts as working class. The still lingering remnants of the classic coffee flavored coffee debates. In Buffalo, we've had a couple people say it to us but it's more like individual members of local unions will be like oh like I bet it's so hard isn't it like very sarcastically old men at like an action or something. But in Buffalo Buffalo has I think I read somewhere that like it's double the national average of union population in Buffalo so like we're we're very lucky that we have you know other unions showing up we have our local politicians showing up we have some media and are there media coverage seems to be limited to like an action which is kind of iffy still they'll cover it but it's firings that they're really those the juicy ones.

So we're like we had like a Labor Day Parade the other day and we all went and met with a bunch of unions and we picketed every single Starbucks in Buffalo. Union non union and we asked local unions to send people out and shifts so that no store would be unpicketed and like they they showed up for us and it's been a kind of have all adopted us. And some of them are not very excited that we're there I think most most of them are just excited that young younger people are interested in the labor movement and that's really all they care about. I don't want to keep you guys here much longer than an hour but I do want to kind of broaden out a little bit and see what you guys think about where's the long term strategy here going do you imagine this movement spreading to other fast food type spaces I mean the service economy is so such a huge part of America's economy right now this does seem like a first chink in the armor of getting these kinds of establishments involved in labor organizing. Is there any outreach there is there any discussion of broadening beyond Starbucks do you have discussions with other kinds of fast food workers I guess. In Buffalo we've had a lot of like smaller like local businesses have their workers reach out to us and ask like just how do we get started with this. Even if they don't want to organize with workers United we still like give them our little information packet and everything and so it's it's been like spreading especially in Buffalo I think but I only really deal with Buffalo.

But yeah like we've had people in similar jobs like other smaller coffee shops. Smaller like restaurants and stuff like that start reaching out. There's like a little taco place in Buffalo that reached out and they were like yeah we didn't know that we could do this until you guys did it so like how how do you even go about a union what is a union we really want this. So that's been very heartwarming in Portland we have a like a local grocer chain that they've had several high profile failed union drives in the past. But some of their workers reached out to like specifically our staffer for the PNW who then put them in touch with us in the Pacific Northwest. You know they reached out asking like can we organize with workers United like we're very inspired by what Starbucks partners are doing. And you know like I mentioned workers United doesn't have a lot of capacity for taking on new projects. So we actually you know talked a lot with them and encouraged them to just organize independently like they it was very clear they already had an eye for how to organize their shop.

And that's all that you need to organize independently really like I mean obviously at some point you need to find a lawyer. But beyond that I think what we're seeing is like a lot more independent organizing efforts that are going on. And so I've definitely consulted with like a lot of workers who initially reach out like they want to organize with the union but then they realize like oh actually. I can do this on my own like I can be the leader we can start our own thing and so that's been really cool to be a part of that. So I haven't had any fast food places reach out to me before the Apple Union went public here. They'd reached out to one of my coworkers. I think it's like the second filed Apple store for Union election. But yeah they had reached out to us someone from like Hobby Lobby who was wanting to organize their warehouse.

But that was a long time ago. It's such a tough place to organize I don't know. It feels tougher than or at least as tough as like Amazon. But whenever I did talk to a local teamsters here they told us they had an uptick in restaurant organizing since we went public. And so they haven't gone through us but apparently they're contacting like teamsters and other like local unions in the state. And they said it's like mom and pop restaurants that have like really bad management and whatnot and felt inspired. And so that was really really inspiring. And I think one of the reasons that Starbucks is like pushing back so much and will really keep pushing back so much is because they have like the entire restaurant industry behind them to not let this be like the first domino that will fall.

Because if they see us like when a contract that's really nice and at least like have a livable wage and like better working conditions like I can only imagine how many fast food places will follow. And I know Chipotle has already but it'll be inevitable. So just two more questions I think one for me one from Will. This is just about kind of the nature of the work at Starbucks. This is kind of more from personal experience but it seems like every food service chain that I visited has basically been under double pressure over the last like 18 months or so from delivery apps. Everybody has the line that is the in store line and then the line that is the door dash the Uber eats the Appified delivery things coming out. You know the ticker just rolling through those and it seems insanely stressful. Has that been a new element of working in Starbucks and has that like how does that affect the pressure of work.

I'll say for my store we do have delivery and it does get annoying when there's like a 14 like delivery order that comes through and you know you need to like do that as well but I would say it's like really hard to like predict is mobile orders. Because like you're on bar you see the line you see there's five people like you know you have five drinks but like if someone you know comes in with like a 20 drink like mobile order then you know that impacts like the drinks you'll have to make and then also like delivery on top of that so it just like adds to your workload that you know you don't necessarily usually expect because of like the capacity of like standing in line or like the drive through line so it just kind of like adds to the workload and not all stores like have like the extra people on board to like help with that. The other thing about the delivery apps is so in the mobile order POS system we can actually mark out like we don't have white mocha so we can mark that out and then it won't let somebody mobile order something with white mocha but the Uber eats system does not allow us to do that. So we have people constantly it's like every other Uber eats order will be ordering something that you know we haven't had in stock for months or is a seasonal from the last year that we discontinued and don't have anymore so these orders come through and if there's not something that's like an obvious substitution for it you have to call the driver. If you're not even going to get out of bed to go. You know Starbucks that every store has become two stores now with the same amount of staff and I it's just something that stresses me out when I go into it to any store like this.

This is several fun with this one look you know anyone who has worked in any sector of the service economy will tell you that customers can be difficult at times and it seems like the Starbucks customer is a certain kind of difficult and I wasn't aware of this until preparing for the show this is actually the I was thinking of course about the enormously complicated and ridiculous like milkshakes that people now like I wasn't aware that this is a huge part of Starbucks is increasing profitability is that according to their research Gen Z wants sort of customization. They want to be able to order anything with any variation and now Chris your friend was just found some of these insane Starbucks orders. Shout out to Josiah Hughes from the 155 pod who posted a massive thread of tick tock recommended orders with things like the nuts and bolt latte. How do you how do I order hi can I get a venti latte made with blonde add an extra shot at three pumps of white mocha and three pumps of hazelnut top with vanilla sweet cream cold foam and extra caramel drizzle. You know I hate to use this word but is that phrase triggering Danny of you I was just gonna say that whenever I saw that thread I was literally triggered I had to close it. Yeah I'm having flashbacks my my single favorite piece of media coverage of our union campaign has been from the onion. And the headline reads Starbucks fights unionization effort by hiring Pinkerton's to order exhausting hyper specific.

You know honestly that could work don't give them any ideas. Right. I'm sure they're listening to this Howard Schultz. So so I guess like open up to you guys. Oh no. Vic go ahead. Oh I was going to say I have a picture of like the most disgusting horrible drink anybody's ever ordered. If this was the question.

Yeah. This is my question of you guys like either you personally or someone that you know in your in your store. What is what is the most insane Starbucks drink order that you've ever had to fill. I want to preface this by saying that we made it and then I made everybody on my shift try it through up. Okay so it's a venti iced latte with strawberry puree double blended with three pumps of brown sugar one pump of classic vanilla sweet cream cold foam add a scoop of strawberry inclusions. Add caramel brulee topping and then four pumps of vanilla. Oh gosh. Okay.

Okay. Can can like is there a way through labor action for us you as workers and we broadly as a society to confront and bring to heal these cretinist sugar addicted morons. We need to bring back bully. Just just one more question about like the specifics of customers and Starbucks. What is again this can be you personally or something that you've heard about from fellow workers. What is the most insane name that someone has made you write on a coffee cup and announced to a store full of people. We haven't had any insane ones but someone would come in and put like Batman and so we'd have to like call out Batman but nothing nothing too crazy in my story.

No no let's go Brandon's. I had a I had a Trump one. But I either if they do that I either won't put a name on the cup or I'll just refuse to say it out loud and like there was a guy who put like Trump on his cup and he tried to come up to me and he was like what's the name on it and I was like it's a lot. So kind of related so whenever we are asking for like customers to like come in and show support will have them like put like Union strong or something on the drink and like some Starbucks is with like not great management have like told the workers to not even like yell out like Union strong or like any union on their drink now. So let us say the crazy stuff but not Union at some places.

Well thank you guys all so much for joining us joining us today. This has been a great conversation. It's great to hear of all the you know work that you guys are doing. Is there anything that we didn't get to do that you feel like we should we should. There's anyone listening who's like you know a chopper listener who is a Starbucks employee and hasn't considered unionizing haha. No but like just like anyone and like you know in a similar job or in Starbucks out there like what like just what advice would you leave them with about like you know what to do or like what to take away from this. For advice I'll have to think about that but there is something funny that I just thought of that we had missed talking about that.

I figured chapeau would enjoy very much. So one of Starbucks is like current Union busting tactics is to accuse the NLRB of colluding with Starbucks and wanting to stop mail in ballot voting because apparently mail in ballots are vote are you know are bad now. And last week at a Trump rally. Trump started talking about Howard Schultz and he started bringing up exactly what he was saying he was like Howard Schultz. With like the long skinny legs or whatever. I got to send the clip because I know y'all will enjoy it. Yeah have you good for me. Please do edit it. I'll put you the clip because you definitely need to like put it in here or something.

The greatest thing happened over the last few days Starbucks remember Schultz this guy Schultz. One with the extremely thin legs I think baby Dr. Oz would have said he's either really good or very very very thin. He was doing a debate he was sitting down I thought his legs I didn't think he'd be able to stand up. But Schultz he's the head of it and he just announced unions are trying to take over Starbucks. But he will not under any circumstance allow mail in voting because it's evil and corrupt. And then Howard Schultz believes like million ballots are voter fraud too. And so I love the analogy that that's creating. I have two plugs slash advice.

So the first one is and like this is not just specific to Starbucks partners but like anybody who wants a union in their workplace. It's something that was not necessarily applied as much to me because we have workers united but the emergency workplace organizing committee or EWOC is like the perfect resource for anybody that doesn't know the first thing about organizing but knows that like they want to do it and or have to do it at their job. And they always say like if organizing is 100 steps will take you through the first 50. And it's like a volunteer team of organizers that will take you through that first process like teach you how to like map your workplace and like you know assign assign people like assessments based on how you think they would relate to unions. And then from there will like plug you into a union that can help you go the rest of the way or will help you do it independently. And then the other thing is you know I've mentioned it several times I'll just continue to mention it like I'm a very proud DSA member and I've heard from so many different stores that DSA has been really helpful in organizing. I've also heard from some other stores that are like hey where's DSA like we have one nearby but we haven't heard from them. And similar to workers united like DSA also struggles with uneven development like some smaller chapters don't do labor work because they don't have any training on it they don't know how to do it.

And we actually just launched the labor solidarity it's a national DSA strike fund. So it's going to help chapters get in touch with like Starbucks organizers or Teamsters as they gear up for their contract fight this next year. And so just wanted to plug that it's at labor solidarity dot com and you can we have sweet merch and you can donate and basically it's just going to allow DSA to be as helpful for every other worker as they were in Portland. Like I I would not be in the position I am today without the help of DSA members. I know it's the same for other Starbucks partners. So just wanted to put that in terms of advice as somebody who was not down with the Union and then organized went from not not interested to like fired worker. It's a lot easier than I thought it was going to be because of the situation that like my workplace was in like my coworker it's not hard to convince your coworkers that they deserve better it just takes you telling them like this is wrong and you know it is. So like if you're thinking about unionizing you should probably just do it.

I do have some stuff to plug. So I want to request to everyone to sign the no contract no coffee pledge. Basically you just put your contact information in there and like if any stores are going on strike near you. If they're having like solidarity events, which will definitely definitely need as many supporters as we can during the contract fight. It's on our website sbworkersunited.org you'll also be able to if you want to file your store to file there. And then we've also I don't know if that's what you were talking about Quinn but we've also launched a coworker solidarity fund for fired workers and workers who you know need financial assistance that Starbucks is not getting. Thank you so much for posting that. And so we're trying to like raise money and get as many donations so we can you know as Starbucks increases firing we can you know protect workers and show that they're not like at risk of like losing their livelihood and protect them. Awesome well I will collect all these links from you guys and I will put them in the show notes this listeners you know what to do click those links make some donations support the Starbucks workers. Thank you guys all so much for chatting with us today I know that this has been a long time coming that we would have some Starbucks unionizers on the show and I'm glad that I were able to collect.

Three people from across the country all working towards the same goal goal so this has been great and you know hopefully we can catch up with you guys sometimes is more. Developments hopefully good developments come from this yeah thank you so much Quentin Alicia Vic want to thank you guys so much for coming on and for all the work you've done to organize your workplace at Starbucks. Yeah thank you all so much for having us one yeah thank you for having us. Solidarity guys. Solidarity. Solidarity.