Comments on: Starbucks Brews Challenge for Labor http://www.todaysworkplace.org/2008/09/29/starbucks-brews-challenge-for-labor/ Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:38:16 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Erik http://www.todaysworkplace.org/2008/09/29/starbucks-brews-challenge-for-labor/comment-page-1/#comment-1009 Erik Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:57:48 +0000 http://www.todaysworkplace.org/?p=930#comment-1009 I was fired for discussing unionization at Starbucks. I'm glad to see that labor liberals are beginning to acknowledge that workers at Starbucks have not only a right, but a need, to organize for their own independent voice on the job. Although it is useful to isolate, even villify, an enemy (such as Wal-Mart) and polarize society against them, this kind of tactic eventually weakens the labor movement by making some workers think that they don't 'need' a union. Corporations couldn't be happier with the result. Also, what is this Andy Stern quote supposed to mean? He has come out AGAINST workers at Starbucks organizing in the past, claiming that Starbucks is a 'good' corporation. So now that the capitalist economy is taking a tumble, is SEIU or UNITE-HERE, or for that matter, Working America going to come to the rescue of me and my low-wage fellow retail workers? I doubt it. So we organize our own union with the IWW and get put down by the likes Stern and Fellner, people who make 5-20 times as much as we do to write books and make grand statements about the future of the labor movement. I was fired for discussing unionization at Starbucks. I’m glad to see that labor liberals are beginning to acknowledge that workers at Starbucks have not only a right, but a need, to organize for their own independent voice on the job. Although it is useful to isolate, even villify, an enemy (such as Wal-Mart) and polarize society against them, this kind of tactic eventually weakens the labor movement by making some workers think that they don’t ‘need’ a union. Corporations couldn’t be happier with the result.

Also, what is this Andy Stern quote supposed to mean? He has come out AGAINST workers at Starbucks organizing in the past, claiming that Starbucks is a ‘good’ corporation. So now that the capitalist economy is taking a tumble, is SEIU or UNITE-HERE, or for that matter, Working America going to come to the rescue of me and my low-wage fellow retail workers? I doubt it. So we organize our own union with the IWW and get put down by the likes Stern and Fellner, people who make 5-20 times as much as we do to write books and make grand statements about the future of the labor movement.

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