NEW YORK — Workers at the Starbucks coffee chain in the United States marked the first anniversary of their union struggle on Friday, with rallies in several cities across the country where they celebrated the unionization of 265 stores across the country, where they work the most of 7,000 workers.
Together with New York City Hall, one hundred Starbucks workers and representatives of other union organizations gathered to commemorate the creation of the first union in the country, on December 9, 2021, in a coffee shop in the New York City of Buffalo, and to ask for company to sit down and negotiate.
“To see this unity and this kind of solidarity not only among all the unions at Starbucks across the country, but also among other unions and other partners and people who just want to support, is absolutely amazing,” said Madalyn Stauffer, a Starbucks worker. Starbucks. EFE, one of the most emblematic locations in the New York chain, has been on strike for a month and a half.
However, as Stauffer points out, after a year no bar has managed to reach a collective agreement with the company, in a country where trade unionism has little tradition. For this reason, rallies have been organized in nine other states of the country, such as California, Massachusetts and Texas, among others.
“There are no trades on the table yet. In our cafeteria, we have a trade day next week on December 13, which is great, but unfortunately we hope that Starbucks doesn’t stand up like it has so far with other union reps,” Stauffer he added.
In the protest, several workers denounced the company’s harassment of union activists to the participants, an alleged intimidation that has already reached the courts on several occasions.
In this sense, the trade unionists recall that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued more than 40 complaints against the company, which include 900 violations of the federal labor law.
“Sturbucks: stop harassing the waiters and recognize the union,” read one of the signs carried by several of the concentrates, who also wore banners with the union symbol – a black fist raising a glass -, and other workers’ organizations.
Another showed the company’s president, Howard Schultz, being called “Starbucks top executive for destroying unions.”
Schultz has repeatedly expressed his rejection of the creation of unions and, like other large companies, argues that unionization prevents direct communication between company and worker.
The pressure experienced by various economic sectors during the pandemic, such as services, has been an incentive for the labor movement in the country.
Another corporate giant trying to stifle renewed union drive is Amazon, which has seen workers at a New York warehouse vote to form a union.
“There have been some really incredible changes in the last year. Most people in the left-wing unions couldn’t believe that workers at Starbucks or Amazon would be successful,” Justine Media, a worker, told EFE. member of the tech giant and that she came to the protest to show her solidarity with her colleagues at the coffee giant.
