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Hello organizing goons! I've been lurking this thread for awhile and recently began reading No Shortcuts, but the fight has come to my front door and I'm not nearly as prepared for it as I'd like to be. I've been working for sbux for almost six years and over the past couple I've ended up moving from the midwest to basically just north of corporate HQ, all the while being a big vocal proponent of organizing and unionization but never going so far as to actually start petitioning since I wasn't confident enough in my ability to get it done. Earlier this year we had a barista transfer in from the east coast, and as it happens they actually came from a store that they successfully helped unionize! We suspect our manager was not aware of their background, as apparently all the stores downtown outright refused to accept their transfer. This seemed like a big break for me because now someone who knew what they were doing would take the reigns while I just kept being a cheerleader. It's lazy thinking, I know, but I wanted to at least read the book first! So basically after a month or so of asking people how they felt about unions and attending one after-work bar meet with a bunch of informational pamphlets, the organizing barista brought in cards and perhaps unsurprisingly, many people were significantly less willing to sign a card that says "I want to be in a union" versus just casually saying "I want to be in a union". They also made a sub-group in the goofy little groupme app that our store has to use to communicate, and presumably only invited folks they thought were onboard, only to quickly be met with lots of silent leaves and one barista outright saying "I don't want to be involved in this". Presumably that same barista went and tattled to our boss about it, because overnight our store was covered in anti-union stuff and our manager was whisking everyone away for tense, emotional one-on-one meetings where she did everything from threaten benefits to openly sob about how hard her job was going to get, which has even further depressed pro-union sentiment now because most people like our boss, and don't like seeing her sad.  The reason I'm so sure that one specific barista tattled to our boss is that yesterday that same barista actually came to our store while not scheduled and basically confronted the organizing barista to try and intimidate them until I intervened, and then I just played dumb (i.e. not answering any question about who gave me a card or who I had been talking to about union stuff) until she got exasperated and left. Her given reason for opposing the union is that she doesn't work enough hours at the store to actually be employed there legitimately, and that a union would result in her losing her job, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me but I didn't want to escalate the conversation by saying as much right then. But honestly, the way she rolled up and basically tried to come after a coworker over this really got on my bad side and now I'm thinking it's time to step up and try to take a more active role in salvaging this, if it can be salvaged. All of this is a lot of words to say: my store is unionizing, and management's first crackdown has already devastated our morale. Should I try to push for more out of store meetings and see if we can win people back over, or maybe suggest to the organizing barista that we back off for now and try to build a more reliable bloc before passing around cards again? I think enough cards have been signed that we could actually file, but there's no way in hell a vote now would go through with the narrative so firmly controlled by management.
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Sep 9, 2022 03:55
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Yeah, I definitely got the impression that we were moving too fast but the other barista was very confident and I (again, lazily on my part) was willing to let them basically do all the actual work and decision-making. I've got a fairly good bead on the talking points my boss is using (you'll have to talk to someone else to get a shift covered! A store unionized in Canada and it didn't go super-great!) but I don't know what she said to one barista who we had pegged as a sure-fire supporter given that they recognized the organizing partner when they transferred in, signed a union card immediately, and even posted union stuff in the normal work chat. All I know is others said their one on one was "pretty intense" and when I reached out to them directly, they didn't want to talk with me about it.
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Sep 9, 2022 17:52
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kingcobweb posted:Let people know that "captive audience" meetings are now illegal. Tell them "hey if you don't want to be part of the union stuff that's on you, but if they ask you to have a one-on-one with a manager ask them if its mandatory." Oh is that actually the case now? I remember reading some stuff about how the NLRB wants to make that so and issued a memo saying such, but wasn't sure if that was legally binding on its own or not. I wish I'd had that line only a week ago, but it'll still help a lot if I can use it.
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Sep 9, 2022 19:42
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Hello organizing goons! I just wanted to swing by again and mention that my cafe filed to unionize this weekend and thank yall for the good advice helping us get back up on our feet after getting busted last time. I hope the next time I post in here it is with news of a successful election!
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Dec 12, 2022 05:55
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Hello fellow union goons, happy to report that our store won its vote today 18-1 today so we're a union coffee shop now!
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Jan 27, 2023 07:49
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kingcobweb posted:WOOOO CONGRATS also there’s always one lol Yeah the 1 no vote was expected and recently even they have been like "man this is hosed", they're just more scared of losing their job than anything else so all we have to do is show them that the union is serious about preventing that from happening. Mostly I'm happy that we got 100% turnout!
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Jan 28, 2023 00:59
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kingcobweb posted:🚨 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/03/01/starbucks-union-ruling-buffalo/ 🚨 I'm hesitant to get my hopes up because just like a week ago an MI federal judge issued a nationwide ban on sbux firing folks for organizing and then a few days later abruptly changed his mind and issued a new ban that only applied to one store instead.
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Mar 2, 2023 07:42
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kingcobweb posted:I have actual genuine for real no-poo poo That's what's up
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Mar 13, 2023 05:08
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BREAKING NEWS
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Because the deck is so heavily stacked against the worker I know it takes a long time for the material benefits of organizing and unionization to roll in, but I've been helping other cafes organize and hearing one of em is ready to file soon is just a fantastic feeling. I know it's just vibes, but at least it's good vibes. 
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May 20, 2023 02:40
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The two-tier system at UPS is older than I am, so getting rid of that is just inherently impressive to me. If memory serves, the John Deere workers who did go on a pretty long and grueling strike had removing the tier system at their plants as one of their demands and eventually had to back down on that. I believe the current UAW leadership is also talking a big game about removing them as well.
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Jul 27, 2023 18:51
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As frustrating as it is, I haven't seen any evidence that strategy isn't effective against newly-established unions. My store had its high-incident status stripped from it between the filing and our vote, costing us a whole person on the floor for opens and closes, and trying to file a ULP about that seemed to be entirely shut down by the company going "nuh uh".
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Jul 31, 2023 23:43
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HallelujahLee posted:the turds are attempting to hit back apparently I'm still learning all this stuff as I go but it seems whack that Ford can do a lockout and in their statement say "this is not a lockout". If management says you can't work today what else is that but a lockout?
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Sep 16, 2023 03:53
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Xaris posted:i thought they always had machines that let you tip via credit card on the on screen display? maybe i'm thinking of Peets or literally every other coffee shop for the last 10+ years They are denying the ability to accept credit card tips at stores that unionized before an arbitrary date sometime through 2022. Some stores even got it for like a day or two and then it turned back off, so they couldn't even implement their illegal solution without goofing it up a bit. Without going too much into specifics, credit card tips have created a noticeable bump in paycheck size at my store (we unionized after the arbitrary date), and many of the stores being denied are in dense high-traffic areas that would almost certainly stand to gain even more from their implementation. Like overnight paychecks could jump up a couple hundred bucks, and they've been denied that money for over a full year now. There was also just a straight-up raise they didn't get, either! I'd like to be enthused about this decision but sbux has already said they're going to appeal and I know that's going to be another long, drawn-out fight where they basically say "nuh uh!" for months. Geight has issued a correction as of 17:13 on Sep 29, 2023 |
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Sep 29, 2023 17:07
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It falls apart under any amount of legal scrutiny but the point of it was to discourage more stores from wanting to unionize and pressuring workers at already-unionized stores to quit because they can't make ends meet, and it's done a pretty solid job of that unfortunately. It should also be noted that the credit card tipping issue is actually a totally separate hearing that doesn't even start until January, this is just about the other benefits. I'm glad for the current NLRB being favorable to workers but it feels like the incredibly slow speed that the courts operate at still heavily favors the bosses.
Geight has issued a correction as of 06:25 on Sep 30, 2023 |
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Sep 30, 2023 03:22
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Once again feeling betrayed by Bernie Sanders for him talking them down
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Nov 15, 2023 05:27
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Cobbled together a successful strike vote at my store to join in the big national action that we're doing tomorrow (and some stores have already kicked off today), have got the strike notice all typed up and scheduled to fire off before our first shift tomorrow. Somehow I'm more anxious now that all the stuff I can do is done and I just have to wait.
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Nov 16, 2023 05:42
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Our store was fully shutdown today, there was one anti-union worker who was talking a big game about how the manager was going to keep us open anyways and how he thought the picket would only serve to increase business, and absolutely none of it materialized. We had a modest picket outside for four hours, getting folks to sign petitions and informing them about our working conditions. Some local DSA lads stepped up to beef up our numbers, it was very much appreciated. It took us almost a year to get some direct action going but I'm pretty happy with our first foray.
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Nov 17, 2023 00:01
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This older Jacobin article was shared with me to provide some historical context - It's good to see UAW leadership finally doing right by their rank-and-file.
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Dec 2, 2023 07:39
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Sbux posted a document in all the union stores that was basically just an open letter to our union prez saying they want to restart bargaining next month, I'm not knowledgeable enough about this stuff to know for sure if I should interpret that as a good sign but I'm choosing to because I want it to be a good sign.
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Dec 10, 2023 06:03
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Yeah in Canada there's like three or four union starbucks that signed up with the steelworkers union and refer to themselves as steelbucks.
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Dec 15, 2023 18:56
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kingcobweb posted:biased because this is my day job but this is legitimately GIGANTIC I've been asked not to post anything online that isn't already in writing somewhere else first but since it's becoming more likely that I'm gonna be at the table or in the caucus for contract negotiations, what can I read or learn to be more effective in my role?
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Mar 3, 2024 07:47
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https://twitter.com/sbworkersunited/status/1783866133621190762 We're making progress I'm not jazzed about all the air travel I've signed myself up for on account of my covid fears, but I wouldn't feel right sitting this fight out just cause I was scared.
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Apr 28, 2024 03:21
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