Industrial Workers of the World

On May 17 2007 a group of Starbucks baristas in Chicago marched into their store today and served a declaration of union membership on their store manager. On the same day working people in countries around the globe demonstrated in solidarity with Starbucks coffee farmers and café workers.

"As members of the Industrial Workers of the World, we won't allow Starbucks to play dice with the amount of work hours we get each week," said Liz Clarkson, an IWW barista at the Chicago store. "Taking this action for secure work hours and a livable wage on the third anniversary of the SWU's founding makes it all the sweeter."

Workers in countries including Austria, England, Spain and Australia as well as several U.S. states commemorated the founding of the IWW Starbucks Workers Union by taking to the streets in demonstrations against the Starbucks union-busting and greenwashing operation.

May 17th also saw IWW baristas in Grand Rapids, Michigan announce they are filing a legal challenge against Starbucks' unlawful anti-union campaign. Starbucks, among other things, initiated a four- camera surveillance system with controversial security contractor Diebold to monitor barista organising activity in Grand Rapids. The company will now have to muster a legal defence on two fronts as Starbucks is set to go to trial over its relentless New York City union-busting effort this summer. Six IWW baristas remain out of a job through retaliatory firings by Starbucks.

"Starbucks' crude union-busting is not welcome in our store or in any store," said Cole Dorsey, an IWW barista at the Grand Rapids location. "Chairman Howard Schultz needs to pay baristas and coffee frmers fairly and get over his deep-seated aversion to unions."

In contrast to its carefully crafted socially responsible image, Starbucks pays a poverty wage and maintains a 100% part-time café workforce. 75,000 Starbucks workers in the United States are without company health insurance. The coffee giant actually insures a lower percentage of its workforce than Wal-Mart. The Starbucks work environment is extremely fast-paced and strains, burns, and exhaustion are common. At the same time, coffee farmers growing beans for Starbucks contend with mal-nourishment and difficulty accessing clean water.

The IWW Starbucks Workers Union is an organisation of employees at the world's largest coffee chain united for a living wage, secure work hours, and respect on the job. Just three years after creating the first union in the United States at Starbucks, IWW baristas at ten stores in four states are publicly fighting and winning on workplace demands while baristas in several other stores are organising quietly until they reach a critical mass of support.

Using an organising model known as solidarity unionism, pressure from the SWU has resulted in wage increases and grievance remedies for Starbucks workers. By avoiding governmental and bureaucratic barriers to organising, solidarity unions use direct action against a corporation to make gains on the job.