We Are All Salts / by Chris Townsend

_{^{Starbucks workers confront managers at the company’s Manhattan regional headquarters on May 1, demanding that the company negotiate and stop retaliating against union activists. When workers are fired and victimized for exercising their rights to unionize, salting is a completely justified response. Photo: Jenny Brown.}}

_{Originally published in Labor Notes on May 3, 2023}

Today’s revival of union “salting” could not be more welcome or more urgently needed.

A tactic as old as the labor movement itself, salting describes going to work in an unorganized workplace where there may be a chance to help initiate new union organizing.

It’s also a label for taking jobs at already unionized employers, hoping to play a positive role. But here I will deal with the former: taking jobs to help spur new organizing.

LABOR’S CRISIS

Whatever amount of salting is underway today—it’s impossible to precisely measure—it cannot come soon enough. The U.S. labor movement is mired in a crisis that threatens its very existence.

A bare fringe of the working class, 10 percent, belongs to a union. The rate of unionization has been cut in half in the past 40 years.

Virtually all employers are ferociously anti-union, and they’ve been able to construct enormous legal and illegal obstacles to unionization efforts.

The unorganized workplace is a de facto dictatorship of ever-lower wages and living standards, where blue collar, white collar, and even professional workers are held helpless in the employer’s grip.

With an army of unorganized workers arrayed against the dwindling union garrison, it is unlikely that any further forward progress for the existing unions or the working class as a whole will be possible without a revival of union organizing on a larger scale.

Widespread salting can and must be a component of these urgently needed organizing campaigns.

CRISIS BY THE NUMBERS

Union organizing efforts today are at best incidental and sporadic. Occasional large or name-brand campaigns achieve some media attention and provide an illusion of union vitality.

Several recent sizeable graduate student wins, the Starbucks movement, Amazon, and activity in the nonprofit sector are all welcome—but are still collectively too small to reverse the overall decline.

Organizing efforts in the public sector are largely stalled, with union recognition still banned in many states and localities. In the private sector, the number of National Labor Relations Board-supervised union authorization elections now hovers at historically low levels.

I joined the labor movement in 1979; that year 7,266 NLRB elections were held, with a union win rate of almost 45 percent.

In 2021, the number of union elections fell below 1,000, with a win rate not much more than 50 percent. The 2022 numbers show some improvement, but nothing approaching what’s needed.

The size of the units organizing today has also shrunk significantly, translating into far fewer workers organized.

While the U.S. union movement is the most financially wealthy union movement on planet Earth, allocations of resources to tackle the organizing crisis are minuscule and often short-lived. (See Chris Bohner’s “Viewpoint: It’s Time to Tap into Labor’s Fortress of Finance.”

The 2022 AFL-CIO Convention’s much-publicized “transformational” organizing initiative remains invisible. Some individual unions have increased the resources they are dedicating to new organizing, but the sheer size of the task demands far more. Salting is one way that activists can dive in to initiate organizing and pull the institution along.

SALTING CONTROVERSIAL?

Employers decry salting as illegitimate. In fact, they routinely allege that workers who help lead any union organizing campaign in the workplace are “union plants.”

Bosses allege this even when it’s an absurdity—the sincerity and authenticity of everyone who challenges their total control must be discredited.

Anti-labor politicians occasionally team up with employers to denounce salting, in an attempt to somehow scandalize it. Bogus Congressional hearings have been held from time to time to denounce salting.

The current salting efforts at several name-brand corporations may catch the attention of these extremist anti-union elements in the current Congress. So be it. Their clumsy efforts in the past, given to shrill hyperbole and wild exaggeration, have always fallen flat.

The defense of labor’s salting projects must take an above-board, straight-on approach: Salting is often the required form of resistance to the employer’s workplace dictatorship.

When organizing is a de facto illegal act—when workers are fired and victimized by the tens of thousands for exercising their paper right to unionize—salting is the completely justified response.

It acts as a catalyst for the workers already on the job who are frequently supportive of unions but nearly purged of hope and terrified of organizing, for fear of retaliation. When the workplace has been reduced to this situation, those who confront it as salts are doing truly commendable work.

Ultimately, all of us are salts. We have no means to earn a living other than finding a boss to hire us—and why shouldn’t we desire to start a union, or strengthen an existing union, while we’re there?

_{Chris Townsend has been a union member, organizer, and staff member for 44 years, spending the bulk of his career as a staffer for the United Electrical Workers and the Amalgamated Transit Union. Contact him at cwtownsend52@gmail.com.}

The PRO Act is back, and Senate leadership vows to push it / by Mark Gruenberg

WASHINGTON—Key lawmakers on worker rights’ issues—Senate Labor Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., and Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va.—introduced the newest version of the Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) Act on Feb. 28.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed to push it on the Senate floor once Sanders’s committee finishes its hearings and work on the measure.

“Joining a union should be a right, not a fight,” said Scott, alluding to the roadblocks bosses erect against organizing drives, almost all of which the PRO Act would outlaw.

But even with one House Republican co-sponsor, Pennsylvanian Brian Fitzpatrick, and more than 200 Democrats signed on, it faces an uphill battle in that GOP-run chamber.

Notorious union hater Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., denounced it as written by “Big Labor.” She vowed “the demands of Union Bosses will stop” in her House Education and the Workforce Committee. Both phrases are Republican anti-worker staples. And speakers at the kickoff event warned of intense loathing, backed by money, from the corporate class.

That didn’t faze Scott, Sanders, Schumer, or AFL-CIO President Liz Schumer, who spoke at what was officially a press conference but sounded more like a pro-worker rally. Listening to the predicted reaction, Shuler stated, “It tells me they’re scared of us. They can’t stand a world where workers get a fair share of the profits” of their labor.

“The American people are sick and tired of unprecedented corporate greed and union-busting” added Sanders, whose committee, with a one-vote Democratic majority, is expected to approve the bill. “The average CEO makes 400 times what the average worker makes.” The PRO Act, he predicted, is the most-effective way to reduce that gap.

By contrast with the PRO Act, given today’s weak labor laws and corporate hate, “taking a risk” to unionize “is an act of courage,” explained Shuler. “It shouldn’t be.”

“But if you look at Starbucks, at Amazon, and at Tesla, what you see is threats and retaliation,” she said.

All of those would be illegal, hit with heavy fines—$50,000 for a first offense, $100,000 for subsequent offenses, plus awarding illegally fired workers full back pay plus expenses, and giving them their jobs back as soon as they get a favorable National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling.

Making organizing and unionizing easier is especially vital in so-called right-to-work states, such as Oklahoma, said Shuler. A Communications Worker from Oklahoma City told the press conference about bosses’ tactics and lies during an organizing drive at an Apple store there. This version of the PRO Act would repeal the 1947 Republican-engineered legal basis for right-to-work laws, the Taft-Hartley Act.

Many speakers described the benefits of unionization, not just for workers in terms of higher wages, better working conditions, safer workplaces, and voices on the job, but for the economy as a whole.

Citing her predecessor, the late AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka—whose name is attached to the PRO Act—Shuler said he “knew we could not build an equitable economy without changing the law.”

The legislation drew an enthusiastic reception from the crowd of Service Employees, Communications Workers, and United Food and Commercial Workers at a press conference turned rally. The Republicans, as Foxx’s statement shows, are another matter.

Besides overriding right-to-work laws and imposing higher fines, the new version of the PRO Act would mandate instant recognition and a quick start, within days, to bargaining when the union wins a National Labor Relations Board recognition election. Bosses who stall on reaching a first contract would be forced into mandatory mediation and arbitration.

It also says if the union turns in election cards from a verified majority of workers before the vote, but loses anyway after bosses’ anti-union campaigns, the cards control the outcome. And it outlaws a key weapon bosses use in economic strikes, hiring scabs.

Any illegally fired worker would have an immediate right to return to her job if the NLRB rules for her. And the new PRO Act would make it easier for the board to go to court for injunctions against law-breakers. If the board can’t or won’t, workers could sue for enforcement.

The measure would also make illegal the captive audience meetings bosses and their union busters now use to harangue workers. And it would let union recognition elections be off-site, by mail, or electronically, not just at the plant, office, or shop, where bosses can illegally spy.

Also outlawed: Bosses’ gerrymandering union elections—the Democrats’ words—by either challenging who could vote and/or stuffing the rolls with anti-union workers in advance.

The measure, HR20 in the House, also writes into law the NLRB’s definition of a “joint employer,” where both the headquarters and a local franchise-holder are responsible for obeying, or breaking, labor law. Bosses, supervisors, CEOs, and line managers would all be liable for the fines for labor law-breaking. So would so-called “persuaders,” a.k.a. union-busters.

And it curbs or bans dodges bosses use to throw people out of unions, such as misclassifying them as “independent contractors” or arbitrarily promoting workers to be “supervisors” but without hire-and-fire and other key responsibilities. It narrows who’s a supervisor, too.

Besides outlawing scabs, the new PRO Act restores the right to secondary boycotts. The GOP’s Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 outlawed that, too, while legalizing right to work. And the new bill overturns a recent Supreme Court GOP-majority ruling allowing bosses to force workers to sign mandatory arbitration agreements which override even union contracts.

The video of the event is here:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/mDBhJyUO6Lc

_{Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People’s World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but a holy terror when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.El galardonado periodista Mark Gruenberg es el director de la oficina de People’s World en Washington, D.C. También es editor del servicio de noticias sindicales Press Associates Inc. (PAI).}

_{People’s World, March 2, 2023}

How to Get Un-Fired / by Jenny Brown

_{^{The Memphis 7, Starbucks workers fired by management in a failed attempt to stop organizing at their store, were reinstated in September after the National Labor Relations Board won an injunction. Beto Sanchez, second from left, said the firings “backfired on them completely.” Photo: Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian via AP.}}

_{Reposted from Labor Notes}

In a few days Austin Locke will walk back into the Queens, New York, Starbucks store he was fired from seven months ago. He’ll also get a wad of back pay, and money from civil penalties.

Locke had a target on his back because he was involved in a union drive at the store, but his reinstatement didn’t come from the National Labor Relations Board. Instead, his case was taken up by the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), under a city law passed in 2021 which makes unjust firings in fast food illegal.

Two recent city laws protecting fast food workers, the 2017 Fair Workweek Law and the 2021 Just Cause law, have resulted in 230 investigations, resulting in nearly $27.1 million in combined fines and restitution for more than 20,100 workers, according to Michael Lanza of the DCWP. Chipotle paid $20 million in September.

Now the city council is considering extending this just-cause protection to all New Yorkers through the Secure Jobs Act.

In Illinois, a coalition of unions and worker centers is lobbying for a similar law statewide. The proposed laws also provide for severance pay for layoffs.

Most U.S. workers not covered by union contracts are considered “at-will employees,” meaning they can be fired for almost any reason.

There are some important exceptions: It’s already illegal to fire someone for racist, sexist, or ageist reasons. Labor law also bars employers from firing workers for engaging in “concerted activity,” meaning getting together with co-workers to improve job conditions. But it’s hard to prove intent when a manager can legally fire you because he doesn’t like your hairstyle or your attitude.

With just cause laws, which require a due process for terminations, “the U.S. would just be catching up with the rest of the world,” said Paul Sonn of the National Employment Law Project. “In many Canadian provinces, the U.K., Mexico, Colombia, there are systems where you need to be given a good reason and advance notice, and typically guaranteed severance pay.”

In surveys conducted by NELP, two-thirds of Americans think there should be similar laws protecting workers.

If properly enforced, just cause protections would give all workers more security to stand up to dangerous working conditions, sexual harassment, bullying, speed-up, and wage theft.

But the New York City law indicates it could help workers who want a union, too. “It’s helpful,” said Locke. “You need to use every sort of avenue you can to fight these companies.”

Locke was fired for falsely reporting workplace violence and for missing part of a multipart Covid screening protocol. Video vindicated him on the first charge and the second had been breached regularly with no repercussions except in his case.

The complaint process was simple. He said he filed paperwork and the city did the rest. Starbucks eventually settled, but not before trying to place Locke at another store. He refused. An NLRB case challenging his firing was dropped as part of the settlement.

A FIRING STRATEGY

Starbucks management has fired 200 workers in the course of an organizing wave that started in Buffalo, New York, in December 2021. So far workers have filed for union recognition in 360 stores and won in 285.

Starbucks didn’t start firing workers right away, according to Casey Moore, a Buffalo barista who now works for Workers United, the division of the Service Employees (SEIU) backing the campaign.

But three months into the union wave, she said, corporate managers realized, “‘Oh, crap, we have a big problem here,’ and they did some calculus where they said, ‘Well, we’re going to fire these workers. We might face legal repercussions, but those aren’t as bad as the benefit from scaring workers.’”

On February 8, 2022 Starbucks managers in Memphis, Tennessee, called seven workers in to individual meetings and fired them all on various pretexts, one of which was that they had held a press conference in the store.

Beto Sanchez, one of the 7, said he was additionally told he was being fired for failing to wear a mask while off-duty—although the rule they cited only required masks while working.

The Memphis workers had gone public with their union drive three weeks earlier, on Martin Luther King Day. The firings were designed to halt the drive by removing the majority of the organizing committee.

But it didn’t work. Although Starbucks hired a bunch of new people in, they still voted for the union, which won overwhelmingly.

“It backfired on them completely,” said Sanchez, a shift manager. “Starbucks was hoping to use our firings as a way to squash the fire, to scare people from organizing, but instead it fired people up to organize even more.”

Soon after the 7 were terminated, Sanchez said, they saw photos of workers in faraway stores marching on the boss or walking out on strike holding “Reinstate the Memphis 7” signs.

If properly enforced, just cause protections would give all workers more security to stand up to dangerous working conditions, sexual harassment, bullying, speed-up, and wage theft.

But the New York City law indicates it could help workers who want a union, too. “It’s helpful,” said Locke. “You need to use every sort of avenue you can to fight these companies.”

A FIRING STRATEGY

Starbucks didn’t start firing workers right away, according to Casey Moore, a Buffalo barista who now works for Workers United, the division of the Service Employees (SEIU) backing the campaign.

Beto Sanchez, one of the 7, said he was additionally told he was being fired for failing to wear a mask while off-duty—although the rule they cited only required masks while working.

But it didn’t work. Although Starbucks hired a bunch of new people in, they still voted for the union, which won overwhelmingly.

Soon after the 7 were terminated, Sanchez said, they saw photos of workers in faraway stores marching on the boss or walking out on strike holding “Reinstate the Memphis 7” signs.

POWER OF REINSTATEMENT

That power was on display when the Memphis 7 won reinstatement in September. Starbucks’ actions were so egregious that the NRLB asked a judge to order them hired back while other aspects of the case continued through the courts.

“It’s pleasant to know they’re taking it seriously, and not listening to Starbucks’ whining,” Sanchez said. Their back pay case is still pending.

When they got reinstated, Sanchez said, there was an uptick in filings at other stores, “because people saw, hey, these people got their jobs back.”

Sanchez noted that the NLRB is understaffed, just like Starbucks stores, and that has led to delays. Still, the cases grind forward. “We’re getting them little by little. Each of them have their court dates. We’re just very ready for them to all get their jobs back.”

In Buffalo, Conklin said if her NLRB decision is favorable and she is offered reinstatement, “I would definitely go back. I want to look them in the eyes: I’m not leaving, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

_{Jenny Brown is an assistant editor at Labor Notes.}

Labor law failings, workplace organizing challenges, and possibilities for union renewal / by Martin Hart-Landsberg

_{Trump’s new Medicaid rule prohibits automatic payment of union dues. (Photo: Peoples Dispatch)}

If you follow the news it must seem like joining a union is a step outside the norms of U.S. law. Afterall, the media is full of stories about how big companies like Starbucks and Amazon threaten their pro-union workers with dismissal, spy on their employees and deny them the right to meet and share information during legally mandated break and meal times, require their workers to participate in 1-on-1 and group meetings with managers where they are routinely told lies about what unions do and the consequences of unionization, find ways to delay promised union elections, and refuse to negotiate a contract even after workers have successfully voted for unionization.

Yet, the National Labor Relations Act, which is the foundational statute governing private sector labor law, boldly asserts that workers should be able to freely organize to improve the conditions of their employment. As the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) states:

The National Labor Relations Act forbids employers from interfering with, restraining, or coercing employees in the exercise of rights relating to organizing, forming, joining or assisting a labor organization for collective bargaining purposes, or from working together to improve terms and conditions of employment, or refraining from any such activity.

So, one might reasonably ask, how do businesses get away with the kind of behavior highlighted above? One answer is that a series of Supreme Court decisions and NLRB rulings have reinterpreted the country’s labor laws in ways that have given employers a free pass to engage in a variety of anti-worker actions. Another is that Congress has refused to adequately fund the NLRB, leaving the organization unable to hire sufficient staff to do the needed investigations of worker complaints and oversee elections even during the rare periods when the NLRB has actively sought to protect worker rights.

President Biden has taken two actions that offer some hope for a progressive turn. The first is his inclusion of a significant increase in funding for the NLRB in his proposed 2023 fiscal year budget. The second, and more important one, was his 2021 appointment of Jennifer Abruzzo, a former attorney for the Communications Workers of America, as NLRB General Counsel. Abruzzo is pressing the NLRB to ban “captive audience” meetings as an unfair labor practice and to restore the Joy Silk doctrine, which would allow the NLRB to immediately recognize a union if a strong majority of workers signed cards or a petition demonstrating their support for unionization.

It remains to be seen what will come from either action. At the same time, labor activists have shown tremendous determination in the face of corporate opposition and their organizing work appears to be paying off. We should celebrate their bravery and support their efforts. However, gains shouldn’t have to be so challenging—if organizing to improve working conditions is a guaranteed right, it should truly be protected.

We have a business-friendly labor law

Private sector labor law has, over time, become increasingly business, not worker, friendly. For example, the NLRB originally required employers to remain neutral when workers considered whether to unionize. However, in 1941, the Supreme Court ruled that employers had the right to make their case as long as their actions were not “coercive.” The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 gave new meaning to the court’s decision by inserting into the NLRA what is known as the “employer free speech” clause, which opened the door for businesses to push their anti-union position in captive audience meetings. In the 1970s, the NLRB decided that it was acceptable for management to use those meetings to threaten workers with a loss of benefits or even employment if they voted for a union. It later also ruled that management had the right to ban union supporters from attending captive audience meetings and even ban employees from speaking during the meetings.

In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled that businesses did not have to agree to recognize a union regardless of the number of worker-signed cards or names on a petition expressing support for unionization. Instead, they could insist that the NLRB conduct an election. Later NLRB rulings have stretched out the time between card filing and voting and allowed companies to further delay elections by requiring that unfair labor practice charges and company challenges to the proposed bargaining unit be settled before voting. Delays, of course, give companies more time for captive meetings, to threaten dire consequences from a positive vote for unionization, and to intimidate and sometimes fire union activists.

Many more examples can be given. Here are just a few recent ones. NLRB rulings have made it easier for companies to reclassify their workers as independent contractors (thereby removing them entirely from the protection of labor laws). Other rulings have given employers the right to deny union organizers access to company parking lots or other public spaces, even if they are open to the general public, such as cafeterias, and workers the right to use their company email system for communicating about workplace issues even if it is regularly used for nonwork purposes.

As Lawrence Mishel, Lynn Rhinehart, and Lane Windham carefully document in their Economic Policy Institute study of reasons for the decline in private sector union membership, “Though these employer-friendly laws were on the books in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, it was not until the 1970s that employers began to take full advantage of their power.” And take advantage they did. In fact, the authors make a strong case that one of the most important reasons for the steady decline in private sector unionism was the ruthless corporate exploitation of the new legal environment.

A weak National Labor Relations Board

Sadly, even at its best, the NLRB has limited power to protect worker rights. A case in point: if the NLRB actually determines that an employer illegally fired a worker for their pro-union activity—a process that can take up to two years because of a lack of staff—all it can do is order the employer to rehire the worker and pay them their back wages (minus whatever they earned while unemployed) and post a sign in the breakroom acknowledging that the worker was illegally fired.

As Mishel, Rhinehart, and Windham describe:

Workers do not receive monetary damages to compensate them for the economic harms inflicted by their illegal treatment. Unlike other employment laws, workers have no right to bring a lawsuit against the employer for violating their NLRA rights; they are entirely dependent on the agency pursuing their case. In contrast, other employment laws, such as civil rights laws, provide much greater penalties and provide for a private right of action so workers can bring cases on their own and collect attorneys’ fees if they prevail.

Here is a recent real-life example of how the NLRB, even when it acts in support of worker rights, is hamstrung by the class-biased framework underlying the NLRA. A regional director for the National Labor Relations Board ruled in April 2022, in response to charges filed by the Starbucks union, that the company had indeed engaged in illegal actions against union supporters. As reported by the New York Times, the regional director found the company guilty of:

firing employees in retaliation for supporting the union; threatening employees’ ability to receive new benefits if they choose to unionize; requiring workers to be available for a minimum number of hours to remain employed at a unionized store without bargaining over the change, as a way to force out at least one union supporter; and effectively promising benefits to workers if they decide not to unionize.

In response, the regional director ordered top management to record a video that can be distributed to all stores making clear that workers do have the right to engage in pro-union activity. That’s it—no fines. And, of course, the company is appealing the ruling. At the same time, it is unlikely that the company would have been found guilty under the regime of the previous NLRB General Counsel.

Some reasons for hope

President Biden’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2023 calls for an increase in funding for the NLRB from $274 million to $319.4 million. If achieved it would be a big deal. The NLRB’s last budget increase was in 2014 and according to its staff union the agency has lost over 30 percent of its staff since 2010. The lack of staff translates into fewer investigations into unfair labor practices and delays in elections.

But it remains to be seen whether Biden will fight for this increase and if so, whether Democrats will stand firm in the face of Republican opposition. The 2022 fiscal year budget included $301.17 million for the NLRB, which the agency said would allow it to add nearly 150 staff. However, at the last minute, the money disappeared from the final budget agreement. As C.M. Lewis explains:

In the deal-making to reach an omnibus spending bill that could secure Republican votes, Democratic leadership made their priorities clear: and they didn’t include defending the right to organize. Congressional leadership and the White House have both demonstrated a willingness to take a victory lap for proposing increased funding while quietly continuing austerity for the sole federal agency tasked with enforcing the National Labor Relations Act.

More hopeful is the work of General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. Under her leadership, the NLRB has been aggressive about responding to worker charges of unfair labor practices. More importantly, Abruzzo is pushing the NLRB to reverse its current position on captive audience meetings. According to an NLRB Office of Public Affairs statement:

National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued a memorandum to all Field offices announcing that she will ask the Board to find mandatory meetings in which employees are forced to listen to employer speech concerning the exercise of their statutory labor rights, including captive audience meetings, a violation of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). . . . Forcing employees to attend captive audience meetings under threat of discipline discourages employees from exercising their right to refrain from listening to this speech and is therefore inconsistent with the NLRA.
The memo explains that years ago the Board incorrectly concluded that an employer does not violate the Act by compelling its employees to attend meetings in which it makes speeches urging them to reject union representation. As a result, employers commonly use explicit or implied threats to force employees into meetings about unionization or other statutorily protected activity.

Abruzzo has also filed a brief in a case brought before the NLRB by the Teamsters in which she calls for the immediate reinstatement of the Joy Silk doctrine. Under that doctrine, which shaped NLRB policy some 50 years ago, an employer could be ordered to recognize and bargain with a union if the union was able to show that it was supported by a majority of workers in the bargaining unit. An election would be required only if the employer could demonstrate that its refusal to bargain was based on its good faith doubt about the union’s majority status. Currently, as Fran Swanson explains in an Onlabo r blog post, “a bargaining order may only issue in cases where an ‘employer’s misdeeds are so widespread they make a fair election impossible,’ a standard which the brief argues has ‘failed to deter employers’ from interfering with elections.”

Of course, Abruzzo doesn’t have the last word. She has to convince the 5 member NLRB to accept her position on both captive audience meetings and the Joy Luck doctrine. Board members are appointed by the President, with Senate consent, and serve for five years. Each year, the term of one member expires. That means that the majority of the board predates Biden’s election. It is unclear how they will decide.

There is no doubt that if the NLRB receives a long overdue budget increase and Abruzzo is successful, workers will find it easier to organize. At the same time, it would be a serious mistake to believe that changes in labor law by themselves will be enough to ensure the revival of the labor movement. That will require the sustained hard work of rank-and-file organizers. Of course, it’s the combination that offers us the best chance for success. So, let’s keep the spotlight and pressure on the NLRB while continuing to support the kind of smart, aggressive organizing that has companies like Starbucks on the defensive.

_{Martin Hart-Landsberg is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon; and Adjunct Researcher at the Institute for Social Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, South Korea. His areas of teaching and research include political economy, economic development, international economics, and the political economy of East Asia. He is also a member of the Workers’ Rights Board (Portland, Oregon) and maintains a blog Reports from the Economic Front where this article first appeared.}

_{MR Online, May 23, 2022, https://mronline.org/}

Starbucks Workers Have Filed to Unionize 200 Stores / by Sharon Zhang

_{Picket signs are pictured at a rally in support of workers of two Seattle Starbucks locations that announced plans to unionize, during an evening rally at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle, Washington, on January 25, 2022 | Jason Redmond – AFP via Getty Images}

This week, Starbucks workers hit a milestone of 200 stores filing to unionize. The union has doubled the number of filings in just over six weeks, with more stores joining the movement at a remarkable pace.

As noted by More Perfect Union, the milestone marks an acceleration in the union drive. The first 100 stores filed for unionization over the course of about 172 days; the second 100 stores took only 48 days. Stores are now filing at an average of more than two stores a day, and have filed in 30 states. Union filings cover over 5,000 workers across the country.

The milestone also comes as Starbucks Workers United has doubled the number of stores that have successfully formed a union. Just about a month ago, six stores had voted to unionize; as of yesterday, 13 stores had voted to form a union, with more elections in the pipeline.

Three stores in Rochester, New York, won a union after their votes were counted on Thursday, marking the first stores in Rochester to unionize. There are now unionized stores in New York, Arizona, Washington and Tennessee, including the company’s flagship roastery in New York City.

“My heart is so full. I couldn’t be more proud of the strength, patience, and perseverance our team demonstrated throughout this very difficult transition,” said Michaela Wagstaff, a shift supervisor and union organizer at a suburban Rochester store, at a press conference. “To others who wish to begin this journey, it’s real and it’s possible. To those who paved the way, thank you for allowing us to learn from you and rely on you.”

Starbucks Workers United has won all but one of its union elections so far, despite a harsh union-busting campaign from the company, which appears to be escalating its tactics as the union secures more wins. The company has been firing pro-union workers in attempts to quash union efforts; though retaliating against workers for unionizing is illegal, labor charges can take months or years to investigate, meaning that the union vote could be compromised even if the company is later found to have been breaking the law.

Recently, Starbucks fired union organizer Laila Dalton, a worker in Phoenix, Arizona, who the labor board found was previously illegally retaliated against by the company. Dalton, the only Black person at her store, was threatened by managers and Starbucks HR, who interrogated her over her union organizing and asked if she had made false accusations of racism.

The union has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over Dalton’s firing, saying that her firing was a violation of labor laws. The NLRB previously found the firing of another Phoenix union organizer, Alyssa Sanchez, to be illegal.

Meanwhile, the company has spent likely millions of dollars on its anti-union efforts. It recently fired its top general counsel Rachel Gonzalez, who received $5.3 million in compensation last year, according to Bloomberg Law. The termination is likely related to the union-busting drive, which interim CEO Howard Schultz appears to be planning to escalate.

In a town hall with workers on his first day as interim CEO on Monday, Schultz said that companies like Starbucks are “being assaulted in many ways by the threat of unionization.” He referred to unions as “outside organizations” that are driving a wedge between management and employees — even though union organizers have repeatedly insisted that the workers themselves make up the union, and that the only party creating division is management.

Workers have repeatedly asked Schultz and former CEO Kevin Johnson to sign onto their “Fair Election Principles,” which outline non-interference guidelines for the company.

“We know that this is a victory and we will celebrate it as such, but we won’t feel true success until Starbucks signs the Fair Election Principles to allow others the room to truly engage in an unbiased election,” said Maggie Carter, an organizer in Knoxville, Tennessee, when the Knoxville store won their union last week. “This company can do so much better for us, and we can’t wait to show the entire country exactly what that looks like.”

_{Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout.}

_{Truthout, April 8, 2022, https://truthout.org/}

How the Starbucks Worker Organizing Model Can Accelerate Unionization Across the Country / by Shuvu Bhattarai

_{Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez meets with Starbucks Workers United members who are working to unionize their store in Astoria, Queens, New York, on March 27, 2022. (Starbucks Astoria Blvd / Twitter)}

A Starbucks union drive is sweeping across the country. In an industry that has been all but impossible to unionize, these baristas have created an organizing model that can be replicated at similar corporate chains everywhere.

The Starbucks Workers United campaign, having secured National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election victories at six out of seven stores, with well over 150 stores filing for an NLRB election as of last week, is one of the most invigorating labor campaigns in recent US history.

The Starbucks workers currently spearheading the SB Workers United drive have charted a way forward for organizing corporate chain stores. Their strategy should be carefully studied and implemented across other corporate chains and adjusted according to context.

The story of SB Workers United begins in Elmwood Park, Buffalo, in 2019, when some Starbucks workers, many of them inspired by the Bernie Sanders campaign and affiliated with socialist organizations, reached out to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)–affiliated union Workers United to talk about unionizing.

After over a year of underground organizing, the campaign went public on August 23, with the workers posting a declaration of the intent to unionize to Starbucks Corporate on Twitter through their own account. The workers chose to call themselves Starbucks Workers United and created a website with basic educational resources for Starbucks workers across the country about why they should form a union, as well as contact information for workers seeking to organize.

With their declaration made public, the union drive drew the coverage of various corporate media outlets and entered into public consciousness. Interest in unionizing Starbucks was sparked across the country, with workers reaching out to Starbucks Workers United and Starbucks customers directly talking to workers about the importance of unions.

With the victory of the first NLRB election at the Elmwood Park store on December 6, 2021, the first Starbucks store in the United States was unionized. This generated enormous media attention, and Starbucks Workers United received a flurry of unionization requests from workers around the country. The media attention of the union effort generated mass interest from workers, and the website allowed for this interest to be converted to action.

After the NLRB ruled on February 26 in a decision involving the Mesa, Arizona, Starbucks that organizing a union in a single store is appropriate, SB Workers United’s particular method of organizing through rapid NLRB elections was legitimized, paving the way in the short term for similar drives to take place. This must be exploited.

Baristas Take the Lead

From its beginning to the present, the SB Workers United union campaign has been a worker-driven project. The union staff of Workers United, the union which SB Workers United is seeking to join, have played a critical but supporting role during this drive. Workers United is given the leads of workers seeking to unionize by Starbucks Workers United. The staff organizers set up meetings with the union-interested workers, taking them through the process of charting their stores, preparing themselves for management backlash, and filing for a union election.

In stark contrast to some other union campaigns in fast food in which the staff organizers handle the bulk of organizing activity, in the case of Starbucks Workers United, the staff function as an educational resource for the Starbucks workers. The primary organizers of the SB Workers United campaign are the Starbucks workers themselves.

As of this writing, workers in only six stores are members of the Workers United union, but all of the Starbucks workers who have filed NLRB petitions and many more who have begun the process of organizing are all members of SB Workers United. SB Workers United is independent of Workers United. While not legally recognized, SB Workers United is already a union with over a thousand members across the country.

The SB Workers United union has its own national steering committee and various working groups that direct the strategy of the campaign. Through the creation of a space that encourages the creative talents and energies of enthusiastic workers, SB Workers United has been able to create a wealth of material, including community support guides, various social media outlets, and pro-union artwork, to build a highly resilient and capable movement that only continues to grow.

Though SB Workers United represents a small minority of all Starbucks workers, it has enough of a force to compel Starbucks to spend millions of dollars in its growing anti-union campaign, announce wage increases to try to head off the threat of a union contract, and even force former CEO Howard Schultz out of retirement. With a recent strike in Denver and the organization of rallies around the country in defense of fired pro-union workers, SB Workers United has already demonstrated that it can use weapons like strikes and community mobilization to win its demands.

A Reproducible Method

If we boil the SB Workers United Campaign down to its essentials, we’re left with a worker organizing method for corporate chains that can be sparked by any organization with sufficient labor and resources. The SB Workers United organizing history is summarized as follows:

A core group of class-conscious workers reaches out to a local union to take steps towards winning legal union recognition.
Workers create a separate, independent, and informal union called Starbucks Workers United, which handles media strategy and creates a central point of contact (a website) to which inspired workers around the country can reach out.
SB Workers United goes public with the notice of NLRB elections, which draws media attention.
Each victory is highly publicized, drawing in new worker leads through the SB Workers United website, which then sends them to professional union staff for training and support in organizing local stores.

The key to the success of SB Workers United is that they have built an independent organization of workers seeking to unionize, so that the workers themselves are the ones who lead the campaign. The critical role of outside organizations (Workers United) is to provide the Starbucks workers with the strategic advice and the technical tools necessary to win.

How can their strategy be utilized to spark strong union campaigns for other corporate chains?

The answer to this question is that a method must be developed to build a core of class-conscious and militant workers across the corporate chain and to develop those workers to be effective organizers and leaders of the campaign. The greatest barrier to organizing chain stores is that class-conscious workers are isolated from one another. For this reason, developing a central point of contact should be the first step to unionizing, so that the workers who have the greatest interest in organizing will reach out to the central organizing body.

The method to organize corporate chains is as follows:

Build a central point of contact that workers seeking unionization can reach out to (like a website, email address, and social media accounts).
Focus on worker education, arming workers with knowledge of the steps to form a union and methods of creating support for unions within their workplace.
Having gathered and developed a core group of worker-organizers, connect the workers to each other to create the formation of a union outside the bounds of legality. At this stage, the workers must be prepared to take leadership of their union.
Build methods of public outreach for the new union group. Every chance to increase the visibility of the campaign, such as high-profile NLRB election victories, must be seized so that the most militant and inspired workers begin to reach out to the newly formed union.

With these basic steps, a new union will be birthed into existence. The nuances of the organization — its strategy, its ultimate mission, its leadership, its working groups — must be decided democratically by the workers themselves and are always subject to change depending on the changing conditions of the campaign.

Workers Themselves at the Helm

There are practical reasons why workers must be the ones driving and leading the unionization drive. For one, they are the ones who best understand and feel the numerous ways they are exploited by their management and thus are best able to develop tactics to use their shared conditions as a point of unity. Second, the common driving factor for workers seeking unionization is a lack of agency, which manifests itself in numerous forms: management abuse, poor pay, and unstable schedules. By creating a space where the workers are able to exert control over their workplace, through leadership of their unionization campaign, a space of empowerment is created that can bring forward the best from every worker. To create a force of highly motivated worker-organizers, worker control over strategy is an absolute precondition.

The SB Workers United drive is a clear reminder of what a union is in its essence. A union is formed not when the state recognizes it, but when the workers recognize it. A union is formed when workers have connected with each other and created an organization that reflects their collective will.

It is important to note that Workers United has only a handful of staff to help assist the Starbucks workers. With the ongoing success of the SB Workers United drive, volunteer- and resource-rich organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) could take it upon themselves to apply this model to other unorganized chains. Through initiatives like the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) and numerous successful electoral campaigns, as well as DSA’s presence throughout the United States, the organization’s skilled members could help create a central point of contact for aspiring pro-union workers, provide education for the workers to organize and protect themselves from retaliation, fundraise for the workers, help workers with legal issues, and use its media expertise and connections to make sure the workers’ voices are heard far and wide. DSA could thus help workers organize across corporate chains, as EWOC has already begun to do.

The stunning growth of the SB Workers United movement has attracted support from labor unions, socialist organizations, community activists, and progressive forces throughout the country and has inspired numerous workers to challenge their bosses and reclaim their dignity. As this movement gains momentum, we can and should put our foot on the gas. Who knows where it could lead?

_{Shuvu Bhattarai is a Nepali-American labor organizer and a member of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America in Queens.}

_{Jacobin, March 28, 2022, https://jacobinmag.com/2022/03/sb-workers-united-labor-organizing-corporate-chains}