Blast from the past: IWW comes to MOA (Starbucks Union)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/article/2008/07/23/blast-past-iww-comes-moa.html




Current MOA I Starbucks employees and Starbucks Workers Unions members
By Anthony Nadler , TC Daily Planet
July 23, 2008

This week the Mall of America (MOA) became an unusual site for the return of a group once thought to be a relic of Minnesota’s radical union past – the Industrial Workers of the World. Yesterday a group of workers at a MOA Starbucks delivered a letter to their management announcing their affiliation with the I.W.W. union and making a number of demands about working conditions and compensation.

The Starbucks Workers Union, part of the Industrial Workers of the World, has been organizing Starbucks workers for more than four years in cities across the U.S. including New York, Chicago, Grand Rapids, MI, and Minneapolis. The union claims to have over 200 current and former Starbucks employees as members nationally. This is their first public union action in Minnesota. The demands of the MOA Starbucks workers include calls for a living wage, automatic cost-of-living pay increases, and an expanded tuition reimbursement program. One of the benefits often advertised in Starbucks’s employment promotions is tuition benefits. A detailed explanation of the benefits packages on Starbucks website says this benefit will be considered only for “accredited courses relating to Starbucks business.” Union members say the tuition benefit is given only for study in areas relevant to future Starbucks employment.

The union action comes at a sensitive time for Starbucks, just after the company announced they would be closing over 600 stores nationwide and 27 in Minnesota. While neither of the two Starbucks locations at the Mall of America is slated for closure, the workers letter of demands also asks for fair severance packages for workers at closing stores.

Yesterday’s letter of demands comes on the heels of another controversial incident at the Mall of America I Starbucks. On July 11, Erik Forman, a former employee, filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (N.L.R.B) claiming he had been fired the previous day as retaliation for union activity. After Forman’s firing, five workers attempted to get management to reverse the decision through a petition and a short work stoppage. Supporters collected just over 50 signatures from Starbucks workers around the Twin Cities in a petition of support for Forman. Speaking for concerned employees, Jake Bell, a current MOA Starbucks worker, said, “We’re afraid that if Starbucks is willing to break the law to fire Erik, they might fire any of us.”

In New York City, where the Starbucks Workers Union has also been active, the N.L.R.B. has accused Starbucks of at least 30 violations. In one settlement, Starbucks agreed to rehire two fired workers. Starbucks Workers Union sources also say their organizing has been instrumental to significant pay increases for New York City workers.

FULL story at link.