This page displays *all* news items from General Distribution Workers Industrial Union 660.
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Submitted on Tue, 04/03/2007 - 5:42pm
By Steven Greenhouse - New York Times, April 3, 2007
The National Labor Relations Board has accused Starbucks of breaking the law 30 times in fighting union activity at four of its coffee shops in Manhattan.
The labor board’s regional office in Manhattan issued detailed charges against Starbucks on Friday after organizers from the [Industrial] Workers of the World complained that the company had sought to suppress their efforts to form a union.
In its complaint, the labor board said that Starbucks managers at the four locations had retaliated against workers supportive of unionizing by firing two of them, threatening to terminate others and giving several workers negative performance evaluations.
Submitted on Thu, 03/22/2007 - 2:39pm
NBC King 5 video here of the protest and interview with Bean 2 Cup Campaigner Peter Van Schaick.
ABC KOMO-TV piece here: "Some Starbucks workers have aligned with the International [sic] Workers of the World to press for changes in Starbucks' policies. Schultz dismissed the efforts of 'fringe unions,'..."
Seattle Times piece here cites the protest and quotes a Starbucks investor in need of reading the 2006 Starbucks Corporate Irresponsibility Report: "Georgia McCollum, an investor from Gig Harbor, said when she heard there would be protests around the annual meeting this year — the Industrial Workers of the World helped lead a small rally for workers' rights outside McCaw Hall — "I couldn't think of one thing to protest."
Submitted on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 6:22pm
Sarah Bender, Starbucks barista and IWW member, traveled with a Justice from Bean to Cup! delegation to Ethiopia to meet coffee farmers growing the beans she brews at Starbucks. Sarah learns the disturbing truth behind a Starbucks Black Apron exlusive, the company's highest priced coffee label, in "Partners?":
Part I -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xTk_LLjxUkPart II -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9petRD_Zss8
Submitted on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 6:16pm
Coffee farmers receiving just 2.2% of the retail sales of their beans at Starbucks?
Starbucks insuring a lower percentage of its workforce than Wal-Mart?
Is Starbucks' Corporate Social Responsibility Report a flashy exercise in Venti-sized deception?
Learn the reality behind Starbucks' socially responsible rhetoric in this new report from Justice from Bean to Cup! and the IWW Starbucks Workers Union. Find out what we learned on our trip to meet Ethiopian coffee farmers and what it's like to work behind the green apron in a Starbucks cafe.
Full text - 2006 Starbucks Corporate Irresponsibility Report
Submitted on Wed, 03/21/2007 - 5:59pm
By CRAIG HARRIS - Seattle Post Intelligencer, March 20, 2007
Like other investors in Starbucks Corp., Elizabeth Moon hasn't been thrilled with the company's traditionally high-flying stock taking a considerable slide this year.
Yet the retired Seattle insurance adjuster views the 11 percent drop since the end of 2006 as a blip in the road and says she's looking forward to today's annual meeting in McCaw Hall.
"The stock has gone up the past couple three days, and that is good, because we had a down trend for a while," said Moon, whose investment in the past six years has increased more than 200 percent. "But I think it's a well-run company and one of the things that impresses me is that it treats its employees well."
