Starbucks Workers Call for Customer Boycott

It began five years ago in Buffalo, New York and would become the nation’s most audacious contemporary union organizing campaign: Starbucks baristas demanded a voice at work. Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) swept from one store to the next, despite fierce management opposition. To  date more than 12,000 Starbucks employees at nearly 700 stores have voted for union representation, and sat down with management to bargain a contract. How many stores would you guess now have a first contract in place? 500? 50? 5?

Try zero. The workers aren’t asking for the moon, but they do want a livable $17/hour wage floor, adequate staffing, and an end to the company’s Unfair Labor Practices. But Starbucks’ management is determined to prevent the union from securing a permanent foothold there, so they have dragged out negotiations in the vain hope that the workers will become discouraged and give up their union aspirations. So workers have turned the tables and asked worker justice advocates to spurn Starbucks until they get a contract.

The boycott has played a significant role in labor history from the 19th century. At one time – before our manufacturing sector was largely offshored – workers demonstrated their solidarity by purchasing only goods bearing the union label. In more recent history, some of our readers will remember the table grape boycott of the late 1960s in support of Larry Itliong, Dolores Huerta, and the United Farm Workers. Many Catholic social justice advocates across the country leafleted outside grocery stores, and by 1970 the table grape growers had signed their first contract with the UFW.

SBWU activists have set up a boycott website. If you a prepared to boycott Starbucks in support of these workers, go to the website and take the pledge!

(Note: this boycott is targeting Starbucks’ company-owned, standalone stores – the ones you see on every block in major US cities. It is NOT targeting the Starbucks counter you see at an airport or in your grocery store, which is operated under license by a different employer, whose employees may already have union representation.)