This page displays *all* news items from Restaurant, Hotel, and Building Service Workers Industrial Union 640.
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Submitted on Thu, 01/22/2009 - 4:33pm
by Diane Krauthamer / January 22, 2009
On a chilly Monday morning in midtown Manhattan, demonstrators displayed powerful messages of solidarity with food and retail workers, demanding fair wages and treatment while sending a prominent message to bosses: “You can’t keep the workers down, New York is a union town!”
On January 19, 2009, approximately 50 people braved the winter weather for the Industrial Workers of the World’s (IWW) annual “March Against Wage Slavery” in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Starting at 11 AM outside the Starbucks Regional Office on 5th Avenue in the shadows of the Empire State Building, a radical marching band joined by union members and supporters rallied alongside Starbucks baristas to demand that workers be paid a holiday premium of time and a half for working on MLK Day—the only national holiday in which workers do not receive premium pay.
Submitted on Wed, 07/30/2008 - 8:44pm
IWW Delivers Cake to Mall Of America Starbucks Workers
Saturday June 26 was like any other busy Saturday at the Mall of America 1 Starbucks. A barista had called in sick during the morning shift, another had walked out in disgust the weekend prior. A Manager from another store was covering the shift of a barista who had been fired for union activity two weeks before. The store was shortstaffed, and the lines of customers were long.
But this Saturday was different. By 3:00, the grinding cacaphony of the frappuccino blenders died down, as a chorus of Solidarity Forever echoed through the Mall.
“When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run…”
Workers stepped back from their tasks to crowd around the front counter. Managers looked on in silence. About two dozen Wobblies streamed into the Mall of America 1 Starbucks to welcome the workers to the union… with a cake.
Submitted on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 5:35pm
Coordinated Actions Across the U.S., Europe, and Latin America Could Be Largest Ever Against Coffee Chain
For Immediate Release:
IWW Starbucks Workers Union, StarbucksUnion.org
Grand Rapids , MI ( 06-30-2008 )- Union members and social activists are gearing up for what may be the largest, global coordinated action against Starbucks ever. Protesters will decry what they see as an epidemic of anti-union terminations by the world’s largest coffee chain. Starbucks and its CEO Howard Schultz have exhibited a pattern of firing outspoken union baristas ever since the advent of the IWW Starbucks Workers Union in 2004 and are demonstrating the same practice against the CNT union in Spain.
"On July 5th people around the world will show Starbucks that we, baristas along with our supporters, will have a voice and Starbucks discrimination and repression of our efforts will not go unchecked", said Cole Dorsey.
Submitted on Fri, 06/06/2008 - 1:54pm
Grand Rapids firing comes in the midst of Unfair Labor Practice charges being investigated by the NLRB against Starbucks.
Grand Rapids, MI (06/06/2008)- Starbucks terminated a barista active in the IWW Starbucks Workers Union today as part of its ongoing effort to combat a growing movement of employees pushing for a living wage and secure work hours. The barista, Cole Dorsey, was fired after two years of service while he was coordinating a union recruitment drive at Starbucks stores in Grand Rapids. Starbucks' pretext for the illegal anti-union firing was that Dorsey was guilty of some months-old attendance infractions.
"Today I joined the growing number of baristas that Starbucks has fired in its relentless union-busting campaign," said Cole Dorsey. "Starbucks' disrespect for the right to join a union is appalling and absolutely will not stop our efforts to have a voice at work."
Submitted on Tue, 01/22/2008 - 1:31pm
The New York Times
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
Published: January 22, 2008
The dramatic battles of the American labor movement were often fought in hazardous settings like the coal fields of Kentucky or the textile mills of Massachusetts.
In recent times, though, a different type of labor dispute has become familiar in New York, focused on the retail outlets that keep upscale customers fed and caffeinated.
And so it was that a crowd of about 50 people wrapped in scarves and bandannas against the cold gathered Monday morning outside a Starbucks at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 33rd Street.