Starbucks. Many Americans may think the Seattle-based coffee chain is generally well-liked by its employees and generally well-liked by liberals, but to some left-wing organizers, it's the new Wal-Mart. Sooner or later the Washington Post was going to notice.
And so today's paper splashed its Style section cover page with a David Segal story about Daniel Gross, a "scruffy college grad" that became the "Norma Rea of the Caramel Macchiato."
But the thing is that organizer Gross doesn't work for a liberal-but-mainstream labor union like any number of unions that report to the AFL-CIO. No, Gross is a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a self-described radical organization that thinks the AFL-CIO is too soft on corporate America.
From the group's Web site, here's how IWW describes itself, (portions in bold are my emphasis):
Furthermore, historians and reporters often associate the IWW with Communism, even though the IWW is not a Communist organization. The IWW is a revolutionary industrial unionist organization, and its membership includes radicals of every stripe, including anarchist, communist, socialist, syndicalist, etc. However, there exists a very strong anti-Communist ideology in the USA, due to lingering elements of Cold War propaganda, and as such any radical organization, no matter what its orientation is often dismissed as "Communist".
Reporter Segal avoids the label "radical" in his article, although he does concede, deep within the article, that IWW has a history of "militancy."
Gross and others announced in 2004 their intention to unionize through the IWW, an organization known for militancy during its heyday in the '20s. This might seem an unlikely choice -- the union is tiny these days -- but the Wobblies, as they're known, allowed Gross and his comrades to negotiate directly with Starbucks, and didn't require certification votes at each store that would bestow upon the group official status in the eyes of the company.
The company has never considered any of the nine stores in question to be actual union shops. Official or not, though, Starbucks seemed eager to stop this union concept before it gained momentum...
—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
Unions
April 12, 2007 - 12:51 ET by dmntd1Thank God for the Unions! Without them, the following wouldn't have happened: 40 Hour work weeks: Of course, most successful people realize that 40 hours of work each week just isn't enough. Vacation time: Of course, many successful people I know only take their allotted vacation time each year because if they don't take it, they lose it! Health Insurance: Of course, without health insurance, people would be paying their own medical bills, which by the way, would have stayed lower because people don't treat themselves like an HMO/PPO in which ten similar opinions from ten different doctors are required before they start an aggressive treatment! Overtime Pay: Of course, because employers are forced to pay hourly workers more after forty hours, many hourly workers no longer get to work much more than forty hours, keeping them in the realm of mediocrity! 'Living Wages' (whatever that means: Of course, with increasing labor costs, the product costs go up to! Now, Starbucks is organized, as if $5 for a cup o' joe isn't enough already!
Please make sure your train of thought carries freight.
P.S. I actually AM a former union electrician. We had a coworker that was inept, lazy and a really REALLY good hider. We transferred him. Yes, TRANSFERRED him... couldn't fire him!
Libs going after Starbucks? G
April 12, 2007 - 12:56 ET by Dave RLibs going after Starbucks? Guess that proves once and for all that, if they get hungry enough, liberals will eat their own.
This republic will not survive the continued neglect of its people.- Neal Boortz.
What is Starbucks going to do
April 12, 2007 - 14:38 ET by ratso ferrariWhat is Starbucks going to do when the radical IWW decides they have the right to take over stores that these "oppressed workers " run? Starbucks may just get a taste of their liberal PC college campus.The executives are all for their leftist ideas until someone puts a hand in their money loving pockets.
On Starbucks
April 12, 2007 - 20:03 ET by UnsaneStarbucks was doing quite all right. Then they committed some egregious sins in the eyes of the Left:
1) They were successful (and that's not fair).
2) They got Big. (as in Big Coffee)
Therefore Starbucks, no matter how cozy with the Left they are, MUST BE FORCED TO PAY.
"...McDonald's is beneath them, and Starbucks is too middle class." - CBC's Rex Murphy, on why those two businesses are the favorite targets of anti-capitalist rioters (June 2002)
Yeah, you hit the nail on t
April 12, 2007 - 22:46 ET by Ken ShepherdYeah, you hit the nail on the head.
Course it's because they are big and successful that they can sweeten the salary/benefits pot with health care, etc., that say a barista at some family-run independent coffeehouse would not have access to.
Of course it's a waste of time explaining this simple concept to leftists.