Submitted on Thu, 10/05/2006 - 3:17am
By Mischa Gaus - In These Times, October 4, 2006
When Joe Tessone and his fellow Starbucks baristas walked into a pep rally with management at their store in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood in August, the bosses were ready.
A trio of higher-ups passed around copies of the preamble to the constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World and warned the hourlies against the radicalism of the old anarchist-socialist One Big Union.
The managers told the “partners”—the company’s sobriquet for a workforce that baristas say is entirely part-time—that the CEO and chairman carry the same benefits package as the baristas.
Submitted on Mon, 10/02/2006 - 11:20pm
By Immanuel Ness - Dollars and Sense, September 2006.
Testifying before the Senate immigration hearings in early July, Mayor Michael Bloomberg affirmed that undocumented immigrants have become indispensable to the economy of New York City: "Although they broke the law by illegally crossing our borders or overstaying their visas, and our businesses broke the law by employing them, our city's economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported. The same holds true for the nation." Bloomberg's comment outraged right-wing pundits, but how much more outraged would they be if they knew that immigrant workers, beyond being economically indispensable, are beginning to transform the U.S. labor movement with a bold new militancy?
After years of working in obscurity in the unregulated economy, migrant workers in New York City catapulted themselves to the forefront of labor activism beginning in late 1999 through three separate organizing drives among low-wage workers. Immigrants initiated all three drives: Mexican immigrants organized and struck for improved wages and working conditions at greengroceries; Francophone African delivery workers struck for unpaid wages and respect from labor contractors for leading supermarket chains; and South Asians organized for improved conditions and a union in the for-hire car service industry. (In New York, "car services" are taxis that cannot be hailed on the street, only arranged by phone.) These organizing efforts have persisted, and are part of a growing militancy among migrant workers in New York City and across the United States.
Why would seemingly invisible workers rise up to contest power in their workplaces? Why are vulnerable migrant workers currently more likely to organize than are U.S.-born workers? To answer these questions, we have to look at immigrants' distinct position in the political economy of a globalized New York City and at their specific economic and social niches, ones in which exploitation and isolation nurture class consciousness and militancy.
Submitted on Sat, 09/09/2006 - 12:56am
By Daniel Gross and Joe Tessone - Znet, September 08, 2006
Requests have been routinely made and ignored for the purchase of a stepladder. It is vital for our safety that we have a stepladder available to use for such tasks as changing light bulbs, reaching boxes on high shelves, and cleaning ceiling tiles. Currently, we are forced to balance ourselves on unstable cafe tables to accomplish tasks in hard to reach places. Our store is not ergonomically designed and until it is, the purchase of a stepladder would be a simple solution to a number of safety concerns.
-Excerpted from an IWW Starbucks Workers Union demand letter and declaration of union membership served on management by baristas at a Chicago Starbucks on April 29, 2006
Submitted on Wed, 09/06/2006 - 3:03am
In a recent entry on the website http://www.bloggingstocks.com, Michael Canfield argues that the IWW's organizing effrots at Starbucks will come to naught:
Retailers like Starbucks operate on such a thin margin that -- were Starbucks to become widely unionized -- there would be some transfer of money into union dues, but any significant increase in pay or benefits would result in the need to cut overall staff, something a union would not be likely to tolerate.
This demonstrates the foolishness in taking the business press seriously when it comes to analyzing unions.
Submitted on Wed, 09/06/2006 - 2:48am
Anarcho-Syndikalistische Gewerkschaft
FAU-IWA GeKo / International Secretariat • P.O.Box 20 43 • 30020 Hannover • Germany
Email: [email protected]
Starbucks Headquarters
2401 Utah Avenue South
Seattle WA
Hannover / Germany, 19th of August 2006
Illegal layoff of IWW union member
To whom it may concern,
We protest against the layoff of the IWW Members Daniel Gross, Evan Winterscheidt, Joe Agnis Jr and Charls Fostrom.
We demand to stop your hostile behavior toward unions and that you immediately withdraw the layoff of our IWW comrades.
We reserve the right to inform your employees and the public in Germany about your scandalous behavior. To your knowledge our sister unions worldwide are informed to make further steps in informing the public in case your are not withdraw the
layoff.