In a town hall with organizing Starbucks workers on Wednesday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) highlighted the corporation’s greed and praised the workers for their “courage” in standing up to the company’s union busting.
“We live in a country today where a lot of people are hurting, they feel powerless. And what you are doing is addressing that by bringing people together to stand up for justice,” Sanders said. “And you, I want to say, are an inspiration to many of us.”
Starbucks workers have been facing a fierce union-busting campaign by the company, which has been forcing employees to attend anti-union meetings, using legal delay tactics and firing organizing employees. Despite these tactics, over 100 stores in 26 states have filed for union representation over the past few months, and new filings are flooding in every week.
Although the company refers to employees as ‘partners’, workers say that they have been treated as anything but. Low wages and unsafe working conditions due to COVID are common complaints, and workers say that the company refuses to address their concerns. In response to the organizing campaign, the company has hired over 30 union-busting lawyers from the notorious anti-union firm Littler Mendelson.
Sanders pointed out that while the company refuses to listen to its employees’ concerns, it is raking in record profits and rewarding executives and shareholders handsomely. “You’re dealing with a very wealthy corporation spending millions trying to crush the union organizing effort that is taking place all over this country,” the senator said.
During the pandemic, Starbucks founder Howard Schultz has become $1.2 billion richer, Sanders said. Last year, CEO Kevin Johnson got a 39 percent pay raise, bringing his total compensation to over $20 million. Meanwhile, the company’s revenues grew by 31 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021, and increased by 22 percent over the past two years.
Organizers at the town hall shared their experiences working at Starbucks, highlighting the company’s union busting.
“Instead of investing in their workers that make this company so successful, they’re investing millions in an anti-worker, anti-union campaign,” said Kylah Clay, a barista and organizer in Boston. “But this should come as no surprise given the company’s longstanding opposition to workers’ empowerment. Since the 1980s, Starbucks has deployed million dollar anti-union legal teams to pressure their so-called partners out of exercising their rights to unionize.”
The company often touts benefits like retirement funds and discounted vacations as reasons that workers don’t need to form a union, but the benefits can be so expensive that workers can’t even use them.
“Even for those of us who have the privilege to take advantage of some of the benefits, all of these dazzling benefits that Starbucks does offer can’t be taken advantage of due to the lack of wages,” said Len Harris, a Denver worker and organizer. Harris once tried to contribute to a 401(k) offered by the company, but couldn’t afford to pay rent with the contribution.
Harris added that the company offers few forms of advancement for tenured employees. Employees with years of experience earn only 63 cents more than people who were just hired, Harris said.
Part of the reason why the labor movement is currently surging is because young people are facing much more hardship in the job market than previous generations, Sanders pointed out.
“Your generation has had it tough, to be honest with you. Everything being equal, you are earning less than your parents earned, despite the fact that, in general, you have more education. Many of you are struggling with student debt,” he said. “What you guys are doing is breaking new ground … having the courage to take on a very, very powerful corporation.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today during our fundraiser. We have 8 days to add 460 new monthly donors. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.