Starbucks Union Demands Reinstatement of Fired Baristas

[Omaha Steve]

http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/07/98528.shtml

Coffee-sippers at 17th & Broadway Baffled by Drum-Pounding Protesters

By Inni Chowdhury

A dozen protesters gathered in front of the Starbucks on 17th and Broadway on Saturday July 5 to protest the termination of two union organizing baristas. The event was just one of dozens around the world, as part of an IWW-organized Global Day of Action.

Keywords: Analysis, Manhattan, Economy, Labor,
By Inni Chowdhury

A dozen protesters gathered in front of the Starbucks on 17th and Broadway on Saturday July 5 to protest the termination of two union organizing baristas. Liberte Locke, ( a current barista who works in Manhattan, wrote a letter to Chairman Howard Schultz, asking to re-instate two terminated employees: Monica (who has declined to reveal her last name for fear of being blacklisted by other potential empolyers) and Cole Dorsey, of Grand Rapids Michigan.

According to the official Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) website, “Monica was fired on the 24th of April without notice. She had resisted management when they made people work public holidays without extra pay. The store manager had told her on several occasions that she must have nothing to do with unions.”

Cole Dorsey was fired on June 6. He had been an active member of IWW Starbucks Workers Union.

The event was just one of dozens around the world, as part of an IWW-organized Global Day of Action. There were protests in Belfast Brighton, London, Serbia, and major US cities including Phoenix, Boston, and Grand Rapids. The IWW Starbucks campaign began in 2004, when the group decided to take on the company in the court of public opinion. Daniel Gross, New York City organizer for IWW, calls their methods “direct action,” one that pressures by attacking their “public image, picketing stores, and organizing Internet campaigns.”

Marching in a line and pounding a drum, they were greeted with bewildered glances by the coffee-sipping patrons. The group of nearly a dozen people gathered around Liberte as she talked about the fired employees, and their efforts to gain more workers benefits for all Starbucks employees. Halfway through her speech, a shift supervisor asked the protesters to leave and warned that law enforcement was on the way. Before leaving, Liberte gave her the letter to the shift supervisor, and asked that it be passed on.

As Daniel Gross, a former Starbucks barista and an organizer with Industrial Workers of the World, or IWW, said before the event, “This is a strategic protest. They are as anti-union as Wal-Mart.” For Starbucks, this latest controversy is just another headache. The Fortune 500 Company announced on July 1 that it would close 600 underperforming stores around the country. As one protestor, Eugene from Brooklyn College put it, “Not only do they have bad labor practices, but the have bad business practices too.”

Industrial Workers of the World:
http://www.iww.org

By Inni Chowdhury http://www.starbucksunion.org
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