Is this a silly idea or could it actually work?
Have you ever unionized a place before? Do you know an established local you could reach out to? Are you able to be low key about it for a while so your ass doesn’t get canned for rabble rousing? Finally, can you talk to coworkers and become close with them before going full pinko union mode?
I fed like these are the questions to ask yourself before heading in. Also working at Starbucks sucks right now, with drive thrus and online ordering, you’ll be swamped. Prime radicalization hours, maybe, but you need to know what you’re getting in for
Ahh these are some very good questions, the kinda stuff I need to know but wouldn't have even thought to ask.
I've never unionized a place before. But I think I would be good at talking to coworkers.
The job would be awful tho, I hadn't actually thought about that. Idk if I'd even end up hanging around long enough to actually start the unionizing
Not sure if unions still do this but back in the day you could be a professional salt. Union would train you on how to do it and so on.
Oh I think I know some wobblies from my DSA chapter. I should talk to them
Not sure if unions still do this but back in the day you could be a professional salt.
Amazon unionisation efforts at JFK8 involved multiple salts working in coordination as a team with one another.
Salting is not only still something being done professionally but something that is expanding in the current labour movement, and quite sophisticated.
I think people doing salting usually work with a union and get a bunch of training with the union.
Peep anything by labor notes, like this, to learn more! https://labornotes.org/secrets
Ooh look https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=3852C26ECC48E858B4BDA0AA9C07ABED
It's often a long process, and you'll probably have to lay low for a while. It's a commitment.
Salting is a good idea. You should (typically) do it in cooperation with a union.
It's called salting, it can work, but as pointed out by other commenter, not so easy as 1, 2, 3
As others have said, it's called salting. It's very gallant and cool.
But, it can take years to get a committee and a authorization vote. Maybe shorter for a local sbux, but you can't just walk in with some red and black flags and say you wanna unionize. It takes time to earn people's trust and time to get them to have faith that unionizing is worth the risk of losing their jobs.
You may not win a union, you may just get better pay and benefits and safety for your fellow workers as a concession and the union effort might dissolve because of it. That's cool to get for your fellow workers but obviously, we have higher aims than pure economism and reformism - we don't want a bigger, "fairer" slice of the pie we want the whole god damn thing and the knife the bourgeoisie used to cut it. It's a big ask for workers without class consciousness but it's possible to develop (and also we need it to overcome the challenges of poverty, war, and climate change as well) and you can be part of that by getting a union in your little local Starbucks for sure.
Salting works very well when you have a plan and some fellow rats to do it with you. You should also expect this to take 2 years or so depending on what your goal is (e.g. a union vote).
Prepare to spend about 3 months just being cool and getting along with your coworkers. You can be clear that you're in workers' side of course, but I wouldn't drop the u word right away.
I recommend having a plan of escalatory actions based on what people in the store are unhappy about. Sometimes they'll just tell you. Most of the time, you need to ask this question: "if you could change one thing about this place, what would it be?" Get people chatting. Someone that says they don't really have any complaints will then tell you that they're struggling because the health insurance sucks when you ask them to list a problem.
Prepare to see yourself and other organizers fired. They'll be people who are now your friends / close colleagues / comrades. Even if you're good on your organizing strategy, SB's first line of defense is to identify you and move you to a different store or fire you. You can never be late to a shift even if there's an emergency or you'll get fired.
You can escalate and take (theoretically) protected action before a union is formed. Focus on that first without outing yourself as a leader, to the extent possible.
Speaking of outing, you'll need to suss out management's attitudes. Some store managers are competent union busters. Some want to join you on the picket (but shouldn't because you don't want them to be fired - you want them to be quietly hiring and protecting a 100% pro-union staff).
And finally, do some reading so that you have good strategies ready to go - and get some fellow rats to salt with you. You want to have 3-4 applications be labor organizers every time today store needs to hire someone. You want to be getting them personally recommended to the hiring manager.
This project is simultaneously less work and more work than you probably think, lol. The reading, the finding of more rats, the organizing itself is work, though it also gets easier the more you do it - and you only have to read the essentials once. At the end of the day, you'll mostly be making coffee and chatting with your coworkers. You'll also probably find it to be a friendly environment for organizing when it comes to the workers (same can't be said for management).
but shouldn’t because you don’t want them to be fired - you want them to be quietly hiring and protecting a 100% pro-union staff
Theoretically if I were in a management position at my local Starbucks, what would be the best way of both doing this and trying to sow the seed of unionization outside of just hiring and protecting them
I'm not sure if that's a good thing to be doing, as a manager. You want to be as sneaky as possible because your greatest value to unionization is being able to shield them from union busting. When your store starts to unionize, corporate will ask you to do these things:
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Do one on one conversations with each employee telling them how bad unions are and sussing out who is pro-union, sending that list back to corporate.
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Distributing anti-union literature.
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Closely monitoring pro-union workers' mistakes to create a pretext for firing.
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Giving dumb anti-union speeches.
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Giving progress reports so that corporate can do things like figure out which stores to shut down.
It is valuable to have a manager that will make corporate think all of those things are happening even though you actually have workers' backs. Once the workers are gung-ho and clearly unified is when you sit down with them and say, "I'm on your side but it has to be secret so I can keep corporate off your trail". If you want to be extra cool, you could suss out anti-union workers and tell corporate they're pro-union and agitating, which is a bit risky but also hilarious. It is also, no joke, a very old union trick.
Okay, well I guess you could do one thing: completely anonymously drop Starbucks Workers United lit around the store and/or invite some competent labor groups to come by and palm card.
PS, in terms of expectations, understand that SB is going to delay indefinitely in bargaining and it's likely that it will take a much larger critical mass of stores before they do bargain. This is a long-term thing and it might result in your store getting closed and the workers either leaving, getting fired, or transferring. SB is a big evil company that makes most of its money on financialized nonsense nowadays. Winning this fight will be difficult and require widespread solidarity.
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not silly at all, but very very difficult without outside help. are you already in a union?
Do it. Works or fails, you have an interesting story and valuable experience
I wish I had gotten a job at a coffee shop. I would be so good at making coffee. Plus you get to meet people. Do it!
Talk to EWOC, they've helped to organize a few Starbucks https://workerorganizing.org/
