Landmark Theaters Employee Union

By LAUREN SHEPHERD
AP BUSINESS WRITER

August 29, 2008

NEW YORK -- A barista who said he was fired from Starbucks Corp. for helping to organize fellow workers into a union has been given his job back.

In a preliminary reinstatement agreement dated Aug. 14 obtained by The Associated Press, Starbucks said its firing of employee Erik Forman was "ill-considered and should be reversed."

Forman said he will start back at work on Sunday at the same Mall of America location in Minnesota that he was fired from in July.

When he worked there, Forman said he had been talking to employees at his own store and at other stores in the area about joining the Industrial Workers of the World union.

In an interview, Forman said although several other employees at the store were members of the union, "I was the most vocal and the most active."

Starbucks spokeswoman Tara Darrow confirmed that Forman was being given his job back but said his firing and reinstatement had nothing to do with his support for the union.

"We don't track our partners' involvement in those organizations," Darrow said.

Forman said he was fired July 10 after he received a "final written warning" for showing up half an hour late to work. The warning followed two prior instances of tardiness a year earlier. Once a final written warning is issued, an employee may be fired.

Forman said he had expected a warning after showing up late for work, but not a final warning. Some employees are given half a dozen or more warnings before receiving a final one, he said, adding that managers frequently choose not to give warnings to well-liked employees.

In the agreement, Starbucks called Forman's firing "an unfortunate series of events." Darrow characterized it as "a mistake."

Besides giving him back his job, Starbucks is also paying Forman about $2,000 in back pay, he said.

Forman said he believes Starbucks reinstated him partly due to pressure from the IWW and other Starbucks workers. His co-workers at the Mall of America store walked out of work the day after he was fired in protest and Forman said about 50 Starbucks employees in the area signed a petition asking the company to give him his job back.

Forman also said he filed an unfair labor practice complaint against Starbucks with the National Labor Relations Board the day after he was fired.

Darrow said the filing of complaint did not influence Starbucks' decision to re-hire Forman and that the company reviewed the situation at Forman's request.

Although Starbucks has asked him to voluntarily withdraw the NLRB complaint now that he has his job back, Forman said he still intends to pursue it.

"The law was violated," Forman said. "They haven't given me any guarantee that this will not happen again."

Robert Chester, regional director for the NLRB in Minneapolis, confirmed that Forman filed the complaint in July and said the office is investigating.

If the NLRB deems that a law was broken, it will attempt to negotiate a settlement between Forman and Starbucks. If they don't agree to a settlement, the case would then go to court.

In 2006, Starbucks entered into a settlement with the NLRB to resolve a complaint filed by New York City workers attempting to organize a union at a Starbucks store. In that settlement, Starbucks rehired two employees that had been fired and posted a notice in three stores for 60 days affirming the rights of workers to unionize under the National Labor Relations Act.

Starbucks also settled with the NLRB in a 2007 Grand Rapids, Mich. case that involved bulletin board postings and an alleged comment made by a manager that an employee said was threatening.

Darrow said Starbucks did not admit to any wrongdoing in either settlement agreement and that the company decided to settle the cases to save both time and expense for all parties.

Starbucks baristas union drive comes at key time

The effort to organize local latte-slingers could hurt the ailing chain

By Matt Snyders

published: July 23, 2008, City Pages

It was a typical, busy Thursday afternoon at the Mall of America's first-floor Starbucks, and Erik Forman was four hours into his shift. The slight, 23-year-old barista was soon approached by a vaguely familiar face: Caroline Kaker, the chain's Bloomington-based district manager.

She pulled him aside and led him to the adjacent Barnes & Noble. There, she broke the grim news: You're fired.

Forman was stunned. Sure, two weeks earlier, he had shown up a half-hour late and was issued a written warning. But that wasn't why Forman was getting the ax today. Management decided to deep-six him after learning that Forman had discussed the warning with co-workers.

"Erik violated terms of his June 2008 final written corrective action by discussing it with a peer," reads the notice of separation.

But there was another topic Forman had discussed with peers, one not explicitly mentioned in the write-up: unionizing.

A member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Forman had been in the process of organizing his co-workers under the IWW banner for nearly two years.

"It started with workers during their situations during cigarette breaks, during car rides to and from work," Forman recalls. "We first approached the IWW in September of '06. They helped us figure out how to build a strategy."

In 2004, the IWW took on a Starbucks in Midtown Manhattan, with modest success. In the following years, the list of IWW Starbucks Union affiliates grew to include five other shops in New York City; two in Chicago; one in Grand Rapids, Michigan; and one in Rockville, Maryland.

Shortly after the first union sprouted in New York, Starbucks higher-ups exchanged concerned emails, leaked to The Wall Street Journal, about how to handle the epidemic of unionizing. One, dated October 29, 2004, begins with a blunt introduction: "Below is a summary of the recent developments in New York City regarding our attempts to thwart a potential union situation," it reads.

In March 2006, the IWW accused the coffee giant of union-busting and filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board. Starbucks settled, agreeing to display workers' rights posters in three of its stores and to allow two fired workers back on staff.

"The reasons they gave for firing me were identical to what they did in New York," says Forman, who's also filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. "This is a pretty blatant example of union-busting. We've been planning on making our movement public for a while—so even though it comes as a blow, it's kind of a galvanizing blow."

On July 11, one day after Forman got clipped, five workers walked off the floor and approached the floor manager, Jason Lyons, with a petition demanding Forman's reinstatement. Lyons told them it was out of his hands.

Now Forman and the IWW stand poised to organize baristas throughout the metro. On Monday, July 21, they went public. Their demands include a living wage, "respectful" scheduling, and an end to the company's alleged union-busting.

Asked about Forman's allegations, a Starbucks spokesperson had little to say.

"We just received the charge [from Forman] and we're reviewing it," says Stacey Krum, on the phone from Seattle. "There's nothing we can offer right now."

The charges clash with Starbucks' image as a corporate paragon of social responsibility. The Seattle-based chain has staked its reputation on progressive values that play well with its well-to-do clientele. Starbucks was listed as No. 7 in Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For" this year.

The most frequently extolled of Starbucks' labor practices is its healthcare program. It's one of the few major retailers to provide health insurance to part-time employees. But that comes with a couple of caveats.

First, in order to qualify, workers must log 240 hours per quarter. However, there are no guaranteed hours and many baristas complain of sporadic, unpredictable scheduling. As a result, only 65 percent of Starbucks workers, including management, meet the 240-hour minimum. Many of the remaining workers (particularly part-timers) decide not to buy into the plan; rent payments take priority over premiums.

Consequently, the company's health insurance plan covers less than half (40.9 percent) of employees. As organizers like to point out, that's less than the oft-demonized Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., which covers 47 percent of its workers.

"It's just incredible hypocrisy on this core identity issue," says IWW organizer Daniel Gross. "It's absolutely misleading. It's taken a sub-par program and turned it into a marketing advantage through spin and PR."

Last week, Starbucks released the full list of 600-odd stores expected to close in the coming months, including 27 in Minnesota. Sixteen of the doomed shops sit in the Twin Cities metro.The closings will affect some 12,000 workers nationwide. On Monday, Forman's former co-workers at the Mall of America's Starbucks walked off the floor and issued a letter to management demanding "just treatment of all employees affected by Starbucks' closure of stores nationwide." With an economy seemingly in free-fall and job security plummeting, unionization—for good or ill—enjoys more appeal than it did 10 years ago.

"This will be the biggest fire they've had to put out in a while," says Forman. "The economy is getting worse, people can't get by and are having to work 14-hour days. Management's biggest tool has always been the threat of firing. People are starting to think maybe that's a risk worth taking."

Mall of America Starbucks Baristas Walk Off Job, Protest Closures

Starbucks union plans protest of nationwide closures at MOA

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- Starbucks baristas at the Mall of America location walked off the job Monday and delivered a letter to management demanding “just treatment” of all employees affected by Starbucks' store closures nationwide.

The barista walkout comes days after Starbucks announce the closure of 600 stores nationwide, including 27 in Minnesota.

BARISTA DEMANDS

The baristas demanded a severance package of closure-affected workers, plus the option to transfer to other stores.

The Starbucks Workers Union says the company plans to give workers one month notice before laying them off with “a paltry two weeks' pay.” The union also says Starbucks will "insist some baristas transfer and will revoke severance pay if transfer offers are refused."

Starbucks pays baristas a wage of $7.60 per hour -- a rate above minimum wage, but below an amount baristas find satisfactory.

"With the skyrocketing cost of living, workers have no other choice than to stand up for improvements on the job,” former barista Erik Foreman said. “Even at Starbucks in the Mall of America, we can organize and fight!"

MINNESOTA MINIMUM WAGE

There are three minimum wages in effect in Minnesota: $5.25 an hour at businesses with gross yearly sales of less than $500,000; the federal minimum of $5.85 at businesses with sales between $500,000 and $625,000; and $6.15 for larger companies. Starting July 24, all employers with sales topping $500,000 must pay the new federal minimum of $6.55 an hour.

Union Link: www.StarbucksUnion.org

Workers Demand Right to Transfer and Fair Severance for Affected Employees

July 21, 2008

Twin Cities, MN- Baristas at the Mall of America Starbucks walked off the café floor today and delivered a demand letter to management calling for just treatment of all employees affected by Starbucks' closure of stores nationwide. The surprise job action comes in the wake of the coffee giant's announcement that it will close 600 stores, including 27 in Minnesota.

The baristas demanded an option to transfer to other stores and a fair severance package for affected workers. Starbucks reportedly plans to give workers just one month notice before laying them off with a paltry two weeks' pay The company will insist that some baristas transfer and will revoke severance pay if transfer offers are refused.

The protesting baristas are members of the Starbucks Workers Union, which is a campaign of the Industrial Workers of the World labor union. Starbucks previously backtracked on its refusal to disclose which locations would be shuttered after the union and others condemned the company for leaving workers in a nerve-wracking limbo.

The store action makes the Mall of America location the first Starbucks in Minnesota, and the first store in the Mall of America, to have a public union presence.

Erik Forman, a barista at the store recently fired for union activity, said, "With the skyrocketing cost of living, workers have no other choice than to stand up for improvements on the job. The alternative is a continued decline into poverty and a degraded quality of life for working families. But this doesn't have to happen. Our message is hope- even at Starbucks in the Mall of America, we can organize and fight!"

While portraying itself as a 'socially-responsible' employer, Starbucks pays baristas a poverty wage of $7.60/hr. In addition, all retail hourly workers at Starbucks in the United States are part-time employees with no guaranteed number of work hours per week. According to Starbucks figures released to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 40.9% of its employees (including managers) are covered by the company health care package, a lower percentage than the oft-criticized Wal-Mart, which insures 47% of its workforce.

Since the launch of the IWW campaign at Starbucks on May 17, 2004, the company has been cited multiple times for illegal union-busting by the National Labor Relations Board. The company settled two complaints against it and is awaiting a decision by a judge in New York on more than 30 additional rights' violations. Starbucks' large anti-union operation is operated in conjunction with the Akin Gump law firm and the Edelman public relations firm.
.
The IWW Starbucks Workers Union is a grassroots organization of over 200 current and former employees at the world's largest coffee chain united for secure work hours and a living wage. The union has members throughout the United States fighting for systemic change at the company and remedying individual grievances with management. The SWU has been especially active in New York City, Chicago, and Grand Rapids.

Union baristas, bussers, and shift supervisors have fought successfully toward improved scheduling and staffing levels, increased wages, and workplace safety. Workers who join the union have immediate access to co-workers and members of the community who will struggle with them for a better life on the job.

###

www.StarbucksUnion.org

For Immediate Release:
IWW Starbucks Workers Union, StarbucksUnion.org

July 1, 2008

Statement of the IWW Starbucks Workers Union on the Announcement of 600 Starbucks Store Closures

"The IWW Starbucks Workers Union is deeply troubled that management's numerous missteps are resulting in more serious hardships for baristas, bussers, and shift supervisors.

To ensure transparency, Starbucks should immediately disclose the locations it intends to close and outline its severance plan. Starbucks and its CEO Howard Schultz must minimize the number of layoffs, assure adequate notice to affected families, and offer severance pay which is fair. Employees and their families deserve to be able to safeguard their futures.

If Starbucks is serious about distinguishing itself from competitors like McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts, Schultz should stop prohibiting full-time status for retail hourly employees and improve a health care plan which insures a lower percentage of workers than Wal-Mart's. And the company should stop wasting millions of dollars on its union-busting lawyers and PR professionals at Akin Gump and Edelman."

###

The Global Day of Action was an unprecedented success!  Thank you to each and every participant for the powerful solidarity. Check out http://grsbuxunion.blogspot.com/ for the run-down of events with photos!

For Immediate Release:
IWW Starbucks Workers Union, StarbucksUnion.org

Contact:
Cole Dorsey, IWW Starbucks Workers Union
in Grand Rapids - 616-540-0243

Beltrán Roca Martínez Secretary of
Union Action, Local Federation of CNT - AIT
Sevilla
(0034) 652 037 683

Ratibor Trivunac, Secretariat of the International Workers
Association in Serbia ,
+ 381 - 63 - 263 - 775

Global Day of Action Will Protest Starbucks’ Anti-Union Terminations

Coordinated Actions Across the U.S., Europe, and Latin America Could
Be Largest Ever Against Coffee Chain

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 (SWU) in 2004 and are demonstrating the same practice against the CNT union in Spain.

AUD and our message of union democracy are more relevant today than ever. Within the last year, a broad discussion on the future of the labor movement and the role of union democracy (there has been nothing like it for decades) has erupted out of the labor movement itself. With more than 40 years of campaigning for democratic rights, with our board members who are experts in union democracy, with our Union Democracy Review, with our website, with guidance we provide for hundreds of unionists each year, AUD can contribute to that discussion as no others can. But we need your help.

From the May-June Union Democracy Review.

Thomas Buffenbarger, Machinists international president, dispatched his deputy to Bath, Maine on March 17 to change the locks on the hall of Local S6, then put the local under trusteeship, ousted the local officers, and took over negotiating a new contract. It was the culminating act in a long campaign to try to get this independent local under control. Routine. At worst, Buffenbarger might have anticipated the usual ineffective protest; but he could not have expected what followed: continued mass protest picket lines, an unfavorable local press, and powerful resistance in federal court...

From the May-June Union Democracy Review.

The convention is old news, but this detailed analysis of the issues and players should continue to be useful as the struggles within SEIU evolve.

• Was the threat of a trusteeship of UHW-West real? What impact did open letters from labor intellectuals and student labor support groups have?
• Facing the imminent threat of a trusteeship, the UHW-W deposited $3,000,000 into a separate non-profit, tax-exempt fund [IRS code 501(c)(3)] independent of the regular local treasury but administered by local officers. What was that fund about? Why is the SEIU International pursuing legal claims against it?
• What were the rival platforms at the convention?
• What are the implications of the passage of the International's program?
• What are the implications for union democracy in SEIU?

From the May-June Union Democracy Review.

More than ten years ago, Cathy Hackett and Jim Hard were elected the top leaders of SEIU Local 1000. One of the early supporters of their democratic reform movement was Alex Hernandez. Since then, relations have changed drastically. In elections for the local's 61 delegates to the SEIU convention, an opposition group, led by Hernandez, contested 49 slots and won 33, a clear majority....Hackett and Hard are strong supporters of Andy Stern, SEIU president; Hernandez backs the opposition platform of Sal Rosselli's United Healthcare Workers-West...

From the May-June Union Democracy Review.

In each issue of Union Democracy Review we publish "shorts" -- stories that are too short for a feature, but too important to leave out. We put this issue's shorts online to give you a sample: Photocopying hiring hall records; "Harbor Herald" reformers win in ILA 333; Peace pipe for Nurses and SEIU?; Trouble in Philadelphia IBEW Local 98; and in Operating Engineers Local 825, Newark; Administration spies on challengers in Machinists District Lodge 751.

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."

The firing comes as a National Labor Relations Board judge is set to rule after a lengthy trial on the retaliatory terminations of three New York City baristas. Even before the firing, the NLRB was investigating whether Starbucks violated a settlement agreement entered into in Grand Rapids over anti-union discrimination. In 2006, Starbucks was forced to re hire two union baristas who had been unlawfully fired for union activity. This latest firing in Grand Rapids signals that reinstalled CEO Howard Schultz will not modify the company's practice of terminating outspoken union baristas to intimidate workers from joining up.

Grand Rapids Starbucks Union and Sevilla, Spain CNT have announced a Global Day of Action against Starbucks July 5th

Day to protest recent firing of CNT member in Spain and continuing anti-union discrimination in Grand Rapids

The Union of Comerical and Hotel workers CNT-AIT in Sevilla, Spain along with the Grand Rapids Starbucks Workers Union (IWW) have announced a Global Day of Action scheduled for July 5th. The two groups are asking social organizations, unions, and individuals from around the world to promote and participate in this day of action.

On April 24th, 2008 a barista named Monica was fired for her union activity from a Starbucks in Sevilla, Spain. She was a member of the Union of Commercial and Hotel Workers of the Confederacion Nacional de Trabajadores (CNT). Now with the support of all CNT affiliates, the International Workers Association, and the Starbucks Workers Union (IWW) they are demanding justice for Monica.

The treatment of Monica in Spain by Starbucks is similar to the charges of anti-union discrimination being investigated by the National Labor Relations Board in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This new Grand Rapids investigation comes less than a year since Starbucks signed a settlement agreement with the NLRB claiming they would end intimidation against baristas interested in joining the Starbucks Union.

Jane LaTour, journalist, labor activist, and former director of AUD Women's Project, has a new book based on her long time support and study of women in so-called "non-traditional" jobs. For more information see the publisher's website.

"...the problem is that Rosselli's critics go beyond denouncing him for criticizing. They would make his very right to criticize illicit. And, because they are armed with organizational power, they would resolve the dispute not simply by democratic decision but by suppression. The irony is that they wrap autocratic intentions in the flag of a democratic "majority"...

By Herman Benson

An angry battle in Ohio between the Service Employees [SEIU] and the California Nurses Association [CNA] calls attention to a proposed new regulation by the National Labor Relations Board that would make it easy for consenting employers to accept, or even welcome, unionization without disturbing their workers with a hostile, confrontational campaign....No drawn-out battle, no hard feelings provoked, no enthusiasms inspired.

...In these parlous times, when unions fight to hold their own, when the need to organize the unorganized is so urgent, the new NLRB system seems like a union leader’s dream. Could anything be wrong?

"The board still has plenty of work to do. Its 150th report in December, stated that 85 calls had been received on its hot line since the previous report... Among the new cases, two members of Local 743 are charged with failing to appear for an examination before the IRB. This is the Chicago local whose secretary treasurer and three former employees had been indicted in September on criminal charges of stealing a union election..."

"...In January last year, Rosselli criticized as "company unionism" a deal negotiated by Stern with California nursing homes. In January this year, Rosselli refused to participate in the election of officers of the 650,000-member SEIU California State Council, or to run for reelection as its president, accusing Stern of rigging the process to guarantee the success of his own handpicked choices. Now, as the SEIU convention looms in May, Rosselli's resignation ratchets the conflict up several notches."

AUD is looking for volunteers to help migrate content to the new AUD website, which is in development. Familiarity with Drupal a plus, but not required. Contact Matt Noyes at info(at)uniondemocracy.org.

From the February 2008 issue of The $100 Plus Club News #109 By James McNamara "Local 157 is affiliated to the New York Carpenters District Council where corruption, and even murder, had been a problem for decades. A 1994 federal consent decree aimed to "rid the union of corruption-that is, the corruption that allows contractors to run 'cash jobs' that deprive carpenters of their benefits and fair pay... and that is used to and opens the door to organized crime." In 2002, the judge concluded that abuses continued; he modified the decree to permit the appointment of a court-approved independent investigator. But nothing seemed to work out..."