With IWW Help Starbucks Workers In Massachusetts Win A Million Dollar Concession
Source: Workers Independent News
By Doug Cunningham
[Erik Forman]: “There’s a new fighting spirit in the working class in the low-wage service sector. Five years ago this kind of thing wouldn’t have happened. Nobody would have thought, oh they’re gonna take away twenty percent of our pay, lets organize a statewide strike. Now workers are and they’re reaching out. So the question is, is the labor movement going to be there to back them when workers start fighting back?”
International Workers of The World (IWW) organizer Erik Forman. Using direct action organizing Starbucks workers in Massachusetts have won a victory that will get them more than a million dollars annually in raises and bonuses. Starbucks shift supervisors reached out to the IWW for help when they faced a 20 percent pay cut due to Starbucks took away their tips in the wake of a Massachusetts legal decision. The workers organized using an online petition and a possible strike. Starbucks conceded – agreeing to pay $350 bonuses and increase supervisor wages from $11 to $13.59 an hour to compensate them for the loss of tips. Forman says what low-wage workers are doing at Starbucks, Wal-Mart, fast food restaurants and other low-wage service jobs could be the salvation of the labor movement.
[Erik Forman2]: “I think this is the shape of things to come. Workers deciding to take action on the job, partnering with labor organizations, fighting the battles and unions incrementally rebuilding through what we call in the IWW solidarity unionism. We need to look to models which don’t depend on the law. They don’t depend on favorable political or legal environment and instead rely on the threat or the actual execution of direct action that hits bosses where it hurts. Capital is destroying the legal framework that unions have existed (under) in the U.S. since 1935 – in the public and private sector. But that doesn’t mean the end of workers struggle. In fact it probably means we’re about to se the beginning of an entirely new wave of rebellion. I think it’s important for us as people who’ve had experience organizing to be there for workers who are starting to fight back.”
Read more: http://www.laborradio.org/Channels/story.aspx?ID=1871016
This story is not copyrighted. Be nice as use the link when sharing.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
The IWW is also organizing Jimmy Johns in several cities.
http://www.iww.org/en/content/federal-judge-finds-jimmy-johns-guilty-illegally-firing-whistleblowers-sick-day-campaign-lon
Federal Judge Finds Jimmy John's Guilty of Illegally Firing Whistleblowers in Sick Day Campaign : Long Delay in Legal Process Demonstrates Dysfunction of US Labor Law
Posted Mon, 04/23/2012 - 7:06pm by IWW.org Editor
Branches:
Twin Cities GMB
Campaigns:
Jimmy Johns
Union News:
Foodstuff Workers Industrial Union 460
MINNEAPOLIS- A federal judge has ordered Jimmy John's to reinstate six workers fired by franchise owners Mike and Rob Mulligan over a year ago for blowing the whistle on company policies that expose customers to sandwiches made by sick workers. Jimmy John's workers can be written up or fired if they take a day off without finding a substitute when they are sick. A union survey revealed that this policy, in conjunction with minimum-wage workers' inability to afford to take a day off, result in an average of two workers making sandwiches while sick every day at the Minneapolis franchise of the chain. The judge's ruling requires that Jimmy John's reinstate the six workers with back pay within 14 days, but the employer could manipulate the appeal process to stall resolution of the case for several more years.
While the workers hail the judge's ruling as a victory for whistleblower rights, they point out that justice delayed is justice denied. “It has already been over a year since we were illegally fired for telling the truth. For all the hard work and dedication of the NLRB's civil servants, employers like Jimmy John's prefer to break the law and drag cases through the courts for years rather than let workers exercise their right to win fair pay, sick days, and respect through union organization,” said Erik Forman, one of the fired workers, “The dysfunctional US labor law system gives Mike and Rob Mulligan and their cronies in the 1% carte blanche to trample on workers rights. Jimmy John's workers, and the rest of the 99%, will only be able to win a better life by taking our fight from the courtroom back to the shopfloors and the streets."
The story of the unionization effort at Jimmy John's reads like a cautionary tale about the inefficacy of labor law in the United States. A majority of Jimmy John's workers demanded union recognition in September 2010, primarily seeking a pay increase above minimum wage. In response, the company spent over $85,000 on a vicious anti-union campaign with the help of outside union-busting consultants. In spite of rampant illegal intimidation, the workers came within a hairs-breadth of victory in an 85-87 vote that the NLRB later threw out due to over 30 employer violations of federal labor law in the election period.
FULL story at link.
Industrial Workers of the World
General Headquarters
PO Box 180195, Chicago, IL 60618, USA
tel: (773) 728-0996
Email - ghq [at] iww.org
Website - www [at] iww.org
to an all time low then picked up again after publications in Chicago
I think in the 90's they worked with some Starbucks but not sure of time line
wiki will tell you some general info
I dont have time right now to look 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World
