Starbucks company representatives abruptly walked out of every bargaining session the company had scheduled for Monday after just minutes in the room, in some cases, stalling negotiations yet again for what the union says are completely spurious reasons.
Union members in Buffalo; Chicago; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Louisville, Kentucky; and Lakewood, California, sat down on Monday after months of anticipation to begin bargaining their first contracts in earnest with the company. These were set to be among the first round of contract negotiations, potentially setting the stage for how future sessions with the over 250 unionized stores will go.
Workers say that company representatives from Starbucks and union-busting law firm Littler Mendelson were late to the session and made workers wait for hours. Then, after returning to the room, they abruptly left, citing the fact that some workers were joining the session virtually on Zoom — garnering deep frustration from workers who say that the company is using this as an excuse to continue to delay bargaining.
“It’s as if Starbucks walked out of negotiations because they didn’t like the color of our hair,” said Al Kerr, a worker at the Elmwood Avenue store in Buffalo that was supposed to bargain on Monday, in a statement. “It’s completely ridiculous — not to mention childish — and clearly just another way for the company to stall.”
The union also says that the company has previously allowed employees to join in on Zoom in the small handful of bargaining sessions that it’s had with union members prior to this week. Some who were slated to negotiate on Monday said that there hadn’t been established ground rules banning Zoom before the meeting.
“I joined the Power and Baseline bargaining session virtually and we had no problems,” Starbucks Workers United leader Michelle Eisen said, referring to one of the three bargaining sessions that had happened prior to Monday. “Why it’s suddenly an issue for Starbucks and their lawyers just doesn’t make any sense.”
Starbucks has filed an unfair labor practice charge in each of the stores slated to negotiate on Monday, saying that the presence of the Zoom callers was a sign that the union wasn’t bargaining in good faith.
The union is also planning to file an unfair labor practice charge, saying that this is just the latest example of the company, not the workers, being unwilling to come to the bargaining table in good faith.
According to the union, despite the company saying that it was ready to begin bargaining, the company has made it hard for workers to get a meeting on the books.
Starbucks presented workers with a slate of dates to bargain in October — but said that workers had to adhere to a rule requiring three weeks of advance notice for time off requests for the sessions. Although workers at 156 stores accepted proposed bargaining dates, only 37 stores had a date on the books as of last week, with the majority of sessions being pushed back to next month.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 182 new monthly donors in the next 24 hours.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy