Starbucks: A Baristas Union? (Starbucks is accused by the NLRB of violating labor law 32 times)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/aug2007/db20070817_127354.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_best+of+bw

Starbucks: A Baristas Union?
At the Labor Board trial of the company, twentysomething activists try to poke holes in the company's socially responsible image

by Moira Herbst

In a spare office-like courtroom in midtown Manhattan, former Starbucks (SBUX) barista and Bronx native Joe Agins Jr. sits on the witness stand with eyes wide open. Dressed in an oversized T-shirt and sporting a goatee, he looks younger than his 24 years. Several times, he asks the judge for time to calm his nerves and gain his composure. Agins is describing a day in 2006, after he'd become an outspoken member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union, when he was introduced to the company's New York metro regional vice-president, who asked him if he liked working at Starbucks. "I felt closed in and trapped by management, and like I was under pressure," he says.

Agins was fired from a Manhattan Starbucks in December, 2005, after working there for a year and a half. His statement is part of testimony at a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing in which Starbucks is accused by the U.S. government of violating labor law 32 times in an effort to prevent unionization at some of its stores. The trial pits a group of young baristas against one of the best known and fastest-growing corporations in the world.

The trial offers a window into the state of labor relations in the 21st century. Unions are in retreat around the country. Manufacturing, their traditional stronghold, has seen jobs move steadily overseas. In services companies, including Starbucks, unions have rarely taken hold. Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) and many other major players have gone to great lengths to avoid unionization drives. Unions represent just 5% of workers in the retail industry and 8.1% of the private-sector workforce.
Allegations Fly

Starbucks has a markedly better reputation for employee relations than Wal-Mart. But that is precisely why the IWW is taking on the coffee chain: Agins and other workers say Starbucks' employee-friendly image is wholly undeserved. The chain, they say, has a systematic problem with low wages, irregular working hours, and a lack of reliable health care. One statistic the union likes to point to is that only 42% of Starbucks workers use its health-care plan—even lower than the rate at Wal-Mart. Starbucks maintains that it offers competitive wages and is among the first large employers to offer health insurance to part-time employees, who make up 100% of its workforce.

"This trial is putting corporate social responsibility itself on trial," says Daniel Gross, another former barista involved in the NLRB case. "If it's fake at Starbucks, it's very likely fake in general." (See BusinessWeek.com, 8/1/07, "A Storied Union Takes On Starbucks.")

This particular part of the battle is about unionizing. For this hearing, which began on July 9, the IWW's Starbucks Workers Union claims Starbucks has engaged in systematic and illegal suppression of union activity—an assertion the company denies. Earlier this month the government called several Starbucks officials for questioning, and this week it is questioning baristas. The NLRB attorneys are trying to show that Agins, Gross, and one other worker were fired in retaliation for union activity. The defense, represented by law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, maintains that Agins and Gross were fired for perfectly legal reasons, such as disrupting business in its stores (Agins) and threatening a manager (Gross).

FULL 2 page story at link.

[Posteritatis]

1. "markedly better reputation for employee relations than Wal-Mart"

That would be what we call "damning with faint praise.."

[DURHAM D]

2. Interesting -

A new Starbucks opened in my neighborhood recently. I recognized one of the staff from another local coffee shop. I asked her why she had switched jobs. She said - health benefits. She told me that everyone who works 20 hours (or more) a week receives full medical. I was really surprised. She went on to say that for a few dollars a month you could also get dental and eye insurance - she thought it was about $15 a month. I was really surprised and asked her about the pay - she said it was higher than any other fast food or retail establishment.

I was pleasantly surprised.