While it's not unusual for a former Secretary of Labor to come out with a smart, cogent article on the stuttering rebirth of the labor movement in America, it is very much appreciated.
American workers are not slaves, and should not be treated as such by the guys at the top who grant themselves huge salaries and bonuses, have taken over the boards of directors who are supposed to oversee their compensation, among many other things, and have become members of the gilded uber-rich in America.
Meanwhile, the average non-unionized workers all too often suffer from substandard pay that just doesn't cover basic expenses, long work hours, uneven work shifts that add unpredictably to a worker's life, forced overtime often at no extra pay, and other onerous conditions reminiscent in some cases of Dickens' England.
Time off when your spouse or child is ill? Not a chance. Sick leave and sick pay too often not guaranteed. A death in the family? Try getting paid time off for elder care, or for the eventual funeral. Bonuses at the end of a successful work year? Forget about it; the best you might do is a skinny turkey while the bosses are raking in millions in bonuses they've given themselves. A nationwide plague that closes the schools so you either have to leave the kids at home alone - the infamous 'latchkey kid' system - or take time off from work, if possible, at a significant loss of income.
A hundred years ago, scabs and strike-breakers with bully clubs attacked and marginalized striking workers. There was blood in the streets of New York and Pittsburgh and Detroit and every other area where brutal labor conditions ruled the lives of citizens and new immigrants.
It's time for schools to teach the labor history of America, with a focus not only on hundreds of years of slave labor followed up the evils of sharecropping and Jim Crow, but on the labor battles of the early 1900's which gave us (thank you, Organized Labor!) the 40-hour work week, sick leave, and vastly safer working conditions. But the road is still long and hard for the average worker who wants less pain, more respect, better working conditions and for God's sake, a living wage!
Every new union, however small, is a brick in the rebuilding of the edifice of unionization and workers' rights. My wish is that unions flower all across America, and that workers can step out of the darkness and into the sunshine, Americans all, in a society of opportunity, care and mutual respect.
Porter, agreed. The union movement is critically important -- not only to giving workers better pay and working conditions but also to achieving a degree of countervailing power in the entire system (including politics). In the 1950s, more than a third of all private-sector workers in America were unionized (and employers without unions followed prevailing wages and working conditions in union contracts). That gave us a strong and growing middle class -- the largest middle class America and the world had ever seen. But then, starting in the 1970s, corporate raiders pushed large corporations to make the maximization of shareholder value their only legitimate goal, forcing them to fight unionization. Of course, in 1981 Ronald Reagan fired the Air Traffic controllers -- thereby legitimizing corporate America's war on unions. Anti-union politicians enacted so-called "right to work" laws in many states, undermining unions by prohibiting them from mandating dues from workers who benefited from collective bargaining.
In consequence of all this, today only 6.2 percent of workers in the private sector are unionized. Hopefully, what we're now witnessing is the start of an historic U-turn, and the rebirth of unionism in America.
Thanks for responding! Just an aside - I was introduced in high school to the Muckrackers who flourished in the early decades - the Progressive Era - of the last century. People like Ida Tarbell, who wrote the expose "A History of the Standard Oil Company", really opened the door at media like McClure's Magazine for progressives like Lincoln Steffens, John Reed ("Ten Days that Shook the World" )and others who were upset about the conditions working people had to live and work in and eager to try to do something about it.
Kevin Johnson should be fired and people should boycott Starbucks. I no longer patronize them and try to find an independent coffee shop for my fix.
Kevin Johnson's qualifications include working at IBM, Microsoft, and Juniper networks. Kevin Johnson's contribution to Starbucks was leveraging technology to allow ordering by cell phone so customers could spend minimal time in the store and just grab their order and leave, often to go back to their offices nearby.
Well, in San Francisco, the offices are empty, and the downtown streets deserted. Starbucks has closed large locations like Fishermans Wharf and the Ferry Building and removed the furniture from others, to make Starbucks a Take-Out only operation, which is making Kevin Johnson salivate.
He can cut the staff to the bone, as all orders will be placed at a window. No bathrooms to clean, no floors to sweep, no Internet to provide for digital nomads. The vision of founder Howard Schultz as a European Coffee House Experience is being ripped to shreds by this greedy CEO.
Trust me, in less than 6 months, Kevin Johnson will close the one store in Buffalo that voted for a union. The union will never live long enough to negotiate its first contract. All the employees of the unionized store will be terminated, and it is all legal.
I wrote all about Kevin Johnson in an article on Medium. With photos, so you can see for yourself what the new Starbucks looks like. Kiosks.
I was going to express skepticism, but you've gone where I couldn't here. Let's just say I think it's a little early for euphoria. It brings to my mind the great twist on an old cliché: "You only find silver linings inside dark clouds." Good on them for the gains they've maid, though - how ever fleeting it may turn out to be. Indeed, your comment raises the question: "Why not cave to organizing if they'll all soon be gone anyway?"
Because Starbucks would like to avoid closing a profitable store if they don’t have to do so.
These union busting law firms don’t work for nothing. But employers would rather pay lawyers to bust a union than having to give up control of not just wages but working conditions.
A single emloyee is powerless again an army of management and their lawyers. There is strength in numbers and employers hate it when employees organize.
But the truth is employers always get the union they deserve. Great employers who share their profits with the employees that produce those profits will never have to fend off a union.
When Howard Schultz was running Starbucks the employees were much happier and less abused and exploited.
Kevin Johnson is a total different animal: greedy and incompetent. The sooner Johnson is gone the better.
From what you say in your original comment, all they'd have to do is turn their whole operation into profitable 2 man kiosks. The accompanying RIF would be offset by lowered operation costs - potentially making them even more profitable. They could do that under the cover of concern for public health and make themselves look good for doing it as "socially responsible." Once the storm has passed, they could start reopening full service operations to celebrate the passing of the covid storm - of course, that would be >after< the original union membership has moved on. Why would they need an expensive law firm to bust the union? They have at their disposal the means and what appears to be a devastatingly workable potential strategy. They'd only need the >legal support< of a law firm to pull it off and justify their actions - public health, of course! That has me wondering why Starbucks would even want to be rid of such an executive as Johnson in the first place. They'd see him as a material asset, a problem solver, and Starbucks is the opinion that would prevail in all this. Just a thought.
Google tells us that as of September 2020, Starbucks had 349,000 employees. For just under 4 million dollars, Starbucks could raise the average wage for every employee from $14 to $25. Starbucks could deduct that from Kevin Johnson’s compensation if he could get by on a mere $10,826,575, and they wouldn’t even have to touch their profits.
In 1936 my grandfather, a GM worker in Flint, MI. participated in the “Flint Sit Down Strike” while my grandmother picketed outside the plant. It was a hard-fought win to gain fair wages and benefits, but in spite of corporate thugs unleashing violence against striking workers, they prevailed. What we are seeing today is reminiscent of the past and we should support and applaud their efforts. Profit hungry corporations have exploited their workforce for way too long, it’s payback time.
This is incredibly positive news! The photograph is excellent of the barista workers, all sorts of women and BIPOC people! This is so hopeful. I feel guilty that it is people like this that are suffering so much, whose fights are liberating all of us, and securing all of our freedoms. I need to donate more monies to fighting organizations!
I was phonebanking last night, and spoke with an old coal miner out of West Virginia who can't stand Senator Manchin or the coal industries practices. I asked him if he is okay, and he said he might be going crazy because West Virginia politics and corporations are unbelievably cruel and people are too scared to say anything. I think I feel the same way, scared and crazed. This post is very, very hopeful.
Yay! very good news! Your headline says it all, Robert! I never use starbucks, but my kids do. That's heartening! A nice holiday spirit lift for the left!
In 1973, I was a new hire engineer in the field of Naval Nuclear Engineering with Westinghouse Electric Corp. The pay was excellent with annual raises always above the rate of inflation. I had a company pension at zero cost to me. My comprehensive health insurance premium was only 7 dollars at month, plus lots of benefits were available. Every year the company would add more benefits. Then, in the early 1980s, this changed (around the time Reagan fired the air traffic controllers). The company's goal was now to reduce benefits every year, especially for new hires. By the time I retired in 2011, a new hire engineer had NO pension and an expensive health insurance policy with very high deductibles and copays. Instead of annual pay raises, the company frequently paid out a yearly one-time bonus. This had the effect of depressing your total salary earned over your working lifetime. Nothing pleases me more than to see that workers are beginning to fight back and get the salary and benefits that they deserve with their hard work!
So, here we are. One day closer to closing out another year. One day closer to closing out the first quarter of the “new” millennium. And, what do we have to show for it? Well, not much in the territory of the positive.
Unions - throughout the history of unions there have been many positive attributes. But, let’s not forget that there have also been many negative attributes as well. I’d like to take a moment and reflect on this latter issue which has created the negativity of workers towards unions. Primarily the greed, graft and corruption. Far too many Union presidents and officers have been found to be “crooked”. Stealing the funds and pocketing the dough. Back room dealings with politicians. Selling out the employees they were supposed to be representing. There is a long list of offenses. Many people I have worked with over the years want nothing to do with a union due to the aforementioned graft, greed and corruption. Myself, I’ve leaned toward reformation of unions rather than abolition. But, this has proven to be an uphill battle.
So, what do I think? I think the unions need to “clean up their act” and do the job they are hired to do without breaking the law. Once unions have a proven track record over a period of time of being trustworthy then we should promote unionization. Until then we are simply fighting another breed of corruption.
Let’s us hope the next three quarters of this “new” millennium are more kind to the working class than the first quarter has been.
Trade unionism flounders when the leadership sees its role as just bargaining for wages rather than working conditions. However unions are the nursery for developing working class consciousness. Workers still need a political party to work for their class interests. Without the CIO and an active unionization movement there would have been no New Deal. So I do not agree that you should wait until your union somehow transforms itself into something better. You should try to make that happen. Look at the formerly notoriously corrupt Teamsters, now in a. Position to fight Amazon.
Starbuck's is in a bit of a bind. Offshoring the jobs of uppity American employees can't work for Starbuck's. Even browbeating current employees can backfire for Starbuck's if demoralized baristas no longer give service with a smile. And I've noticed that newer McDonald's stores have replaced counter servers with ordering kiosks that require the customer to enter his own order and process his own payment. McDonald's recently converted an old but friendly store here to the new model. Every customer I've talked to about the new store dislikes it. All this is important since corporate America has already offshored the jobs that could be relocated easily. Now they are coming for the service sector too. Anybody remember the automat?
Kudos to those Starbucks employees for this, small, okay, maybe tiny achievement, but an important one. Yes, the Reagan years ushered in the high gear (started in the late 60's) neoliberal crush-the-unions, claw-back-worker benefits moment in our history. Today employees are dealing with a nuclear labor environment that they are fighting to redress. Wishing you constant, unwavering support in this worthy endeavor for an American quality of life.
Solidarity forever! Until workers of all varieties get a fair portion of the wealth they create, nearly every other social problem we face (housing? health? violence? education? labor "shortage"?) will remain rooted, with just some pruning around the edges. I'm reminded that Henry Ford - despicable in many ways - had one understanding that today's corporations have forgotten - your workers are your customers. And, I add, your ambassadors, your recruiters, and your neighbors.
While it's not unusual for a former Secretary of Labor to come out with a smart, cogent article on the stuttering rebirth of the labor movement in America, it is very much appreciated.
American workers are not slaves, and should not be treated as such by the guys at the top who grant themselves huge salaries and bonuses, have taken over the boards of directors who are supposed to oversee their compensation, among many other things, and have become members of the gilded uber-rich in America.
Meanwhile, the average non-unionized workers all too often suffer from substandard pay that just doesn't cover basic expenses, long work hours, uneven work shifts that add unpredictably to a worker's life, forced overtime often at no extra pay, and other onerous conditions reminiscent in some cases of Dickens' England.
Time off when your spouse or child is ill? Not a chance. Sick leave and sick pay too often not guaranteed. A death in the family? Try getting paid time off for elder care, or for the eventual funeral. Bonuses at the end of a successful work year? Forget about it; the best you might do is a skinny turkey while the bosses are raking in millions in bonuses they've given themselves. A nationwide plague that closes the schools so you either have to leave the kids at home alone - the infamous 'latchkey kid' system - or take time off from work, if possible, at a significant loss of income.
A hundred years ago, scabs and strike-breakers with bully clubs attacked and marginalized striking workers. There was blood in the streets of New York and Pittsburgh and Detroit and every other area where brutal labor conditions ruled the lives of citizens and new immigrants.
It's time for schools to teach the labor history of America, with a focus not only on hundreds of years of slave labor followed up the evils of sharecropping and Jim Crow, but on the labor battles of the early 1900's which gave us (thank you, Organized Labor!) the 40-hour work week, sick leave, and vastly safer working conditions. But the road is still long and hard for the average worker who wants less pain, more respect, better working conditions and for God's sake, a living wage!
Every new union, however small, is a brick in the rebuilding of the edifice of unionization and workers' rights. My wish is that unions flower all across America, and that workers can step out of the darkness and into the sunshine, Americans all, in a society of opportunity, care and mutual respect.
Porter, agreed. The union movement is critically important -- not only to giving workers better pay and working conditions but also to achieving a degree of countervailing power in the entire system (including politics). In the 1950s, more than a third of all private-sector workers in America were unionized (and employers without unions followed prevailing wages and working conditions in union contracts). That gave us a strong and growing middle class -- the largest middle class America and the world had ever seen. But then, starting in the 1970s, corporate raiders pushed large corporations to make the maximization of shareholder value their only legitimate goal, forcing them to fight unionization. Of course, in 1981 Ronald Reagan fired the Air Traffic controllers -- thereby legitimizing corporate America's war on unions. Anti-union politicians enacted so-called "right to work" laws in many states, undermining unions by prohibiting them from mandating dues from workers who benefited from collective bargaining.
In consequence of all this, today only 6.2 percent of workers in the private sector are unionized. Hopefully, what we're now witnessing is the start of an historic U-turn, and the rebirth of unionism in America.
Thanks for responding! Just an aside - I was introduced in high school to the Muckrackers who flourished in the early decades - the Progressive Era - of the last century. People like Ida Tarbell, who wrote the expose "A History of the Standard Oil Company", really opened the door at media like McClure's Magazine for progressives like Lincoln Steffens, John Reed ("Ten Days that Shook the World" )and others who were upset about the conditions working people had to live and work in and eager to try to do something about it.
lets not forget Upton Sinclair and the chicago stockyards
That was the name on the tip of my tongue. What a great man he was! Thank you.
Excuse me, "Muckrakers" is the correct spelling.
Kevin Johnson should be fired and people should boycott Starbucks. I no longer patronize them and try to find an independent coffee shop for my fix.
Kevin Johnson's qualifications include working at IBM, Microsoft, and Juniper networks. Kevin Johnson's contribution to Starbucks was leveraging technology to allow ordering by cell phone so customers could spend minimal time in the store and just grab their order and leave, often to go back to their offices nearby.
Well, in San Francisco, the offices are empty, and the downtown streets deserted. Starbucks has closed large locations like Fishermans Wharf and the Ferry Building and removed the furniture from others, to make Starbucks a Take-Out only operation, which is making Kevin Johnson salivate.
He can cut the staff to the bone, as all orders will be placed at a window. No bathrooms to clean, no floors to sweep, no Internet to provide for digital nomads. The vision of founder Howard Schultz as a European Coffee House Experience is being ripped to shreds by this greedy CEO.
Trust me, in less than 6 months, Kevin Johnson will close the one store in Buffalo that voted for a union. The union will never live long enough to negotiate its first contract. All the employees of the unionized store will be terminated, and it is all legal.
I wrote all about Kevin Johnson in an article on Medium. With photos, so you can see for yourself what the new Starbucks looks like. Kiosks.
Read the article here: https://sf-native.medium.com/an-open-letter-to-starbucks-shareholders-customers-and-directors-ef8a9e1cbc54
I was going to express skepticism, but you've gone where I couldn't here. Let's just say I think it's a little early for euphoria. It brings to my mind the great twist on an old cliché: "You only find silver linings inside dark clouds." Good on them for the gains they've maid, though - how ever fleeting it may turn out to be. Indeed, your comment raises the question: "Why not cave to organizing if they'll all soon be gone anyway?"
Because Starbucks would like to avoid closing a profitable store if they don’t have to do so.
These union busting law firms don’t work for nothing. But employers would rather pay lawyers to bust a union than having to give up control of not just wages but working conditions.
A single emloyee is powerless again an army of management and their lawyers. There is strength in numbers and employers hate it when employees organize.
But the truth is employers always get the union they deserve. Great employers who share their profits with the employees that produce those profits will never have to fend off a union.
When Howard Schultz was running Starbucks the employees were much happier and less abused and exploited.
Kevin Johnson is a total different animal: greedy and incompetent. The sooner Johnson is gone the better.
From what you say in your original comment, all they'd have to do is turn their whole operation into profitable 2 man kiosks. The accompanying RIF would be offset by lowered operation costs - potentially making them even more profitable. They could do that under the cover of concern for public health and make themselves look good for doing it as "socially responsible." Once the storm has passed, they could start reopening full service operations to celebrate the passing of the covid storm - of course, that would be >after< the original union membership has moved on. Why would they need an expensive law firm to bust the union? They have at their disposal the means and what appears to be a devastatingly workable potential strategy. They'd only need the >legal support< of a law firm to pull it off and justify their actions - public health, of course! That has me wondering why Starbucks would even want to be rid of such an executive as Johnson in the first place. They'd see him as a material asset, a problem solver, and Starbucks is the opinion that would prevail in all this. Just a thought.
Those workers stood up for their rights. Just think what might happen if the Democratic Party supported the working class instead of the donor class.
Our country needs to re-embrace unionism to secure middle class living standards and values…
Google tells us that as of September 2020, Starbucks had 349,000 employees. For just under 4 million dollars, Starbucks could raise the average wage for every employee from $14 to $25. Starbucks could deduct that from Kevin Johnson’s compensation if he could get by on a mere $10,826,575, and they wouldn’t even have to touch their profits.
In 1936 my grandfather, a GM worker in Flint, MI. participated in the “Flint Sit Down Strike” while my grandmother picketed outside the plant. It was a hard-fought win to gain fair wages and benefits, but in spite of corporate thugs unleashing violence against striking workers, they prevailed. What we are seeing today is reminiscent of the past and we should support and applaud their efforts. Profit hungry corporations have exploited their workforce for way too long, it’s payback time.
This is incredibly positive news! The photograph is excellent of the barista workers, all sorts of women and BIPOC people! This is so hopeful. I feel guilty that it is people like this that are suffering so much, whose fights are liberating all of us, and securing all of our freedoms. I need to donate more monies to fighting organizations!
I was phonebanking last night, and spoke with an old coal miner out of West Virginia who can't stand Senator Manchin or the coal industries practices. I asked him if he is okay, and he said he might be going crazy because West Virginia politics and corporations are unbelievably cruel and people are too scared to say anything. I think I feel the same way, scared and crazed. This post is very, very hopeful.
about time the unions make a return...simply look at the base salary of worker $14/hr vs that of executives $14M...why? how is this justified, okay?
Yay! very good news! Your headline says it all, Robert! I never use starbucks, but my kids do. That's heartening! A nice holiday spirit lift for the left!
In 1973, I was a new hire engineer in the field of Naval Nuclear Engineering with Westinghouse Electric Corp. The pay was excellent with annual raises always above the rate of inflation. I had a company pension at zero cost to me. My comprehensive health insurance premium was only 7 dollars at month, plus lots of benefits were available. Every year the company would add more benefits. Then, in the early 1980s, this changed (around the time Reagan fired the air traffic controllers). The company's goal was now to reduce benefits every year, especially for new hires. By the time I retired in 2011, a new hire engineer had NO pension and an expensive health insurance policy with very high deductibles and copays. Instead of annual pay raises, the company frequently paid out a yearly one-time bonus. This had the effect of depressing your total salary earned over your working lifetime. Nothing pleases me more than to see that workers are beginning to fight back and get the salary and benefits that they deserve with their hard work!
So, here we are. One day closer to closing out another year. One day closer to closing out the first quarter of the “new” millennium. And, what do we have to show for it? Well, not much in the territory of the positive.
Unions - throughout the history of unions there have been many positive attributes. But, let’s not forget that there have also been many negative attributes as well. I’d like to take a moment and reflect on this latter issue which has created the negativity of workers towards unions. Primarily the greed, graft and corruption. Far too many Union presidents and officers have been found to be “crooked”. Stealing the funds and pocketing the dough. Back room dealings with politicians. Selling out the employees they were supposed to be representing. There is a long list of offenses. Many people I have worked with over the years want nothing to do with a union due to the aforementioned graft, greed and corruption. Myself, I’ve leaned toward reformation of unions rather than abolition. But, this has proven to be an uphill battle.
So, what do I think? I think the unions need to “clean up their act” and do the job they are hired to do without breaking the law. Once unions have a proven track record over a period of time of being trustworthy then we should promote unionization. Until then we are simply fighting another breed of corruption.
Let’s us hope the next three quarters of this “new” millennium are more kind to the working class than the first quarter has been.
Trade unionism flounders when the leadership sees its role as just bargaining for wages rather than working conditions. However unions are the nursery for developing working class consciousness. Workers still need a political party to work for their class interests. Without the CIO and an active unionization movement there would have been no New Deal. So I do not agree that you should wait until your union somehow transforms itself into something better. You should try to make that happen. Look at the formerly notoriously corrupt Teamsters, now in a. Position to fight Amazon.
These days, the question is where does a citizen learn her/his rights? And responsibilities to society?
Starbuck's is in a bit of a bind. Offshoring the jobs of uppity American employees can't work for Starbuck's. Even browbeating current employees can backfire for Starbuck's if demoralized baristas no longer give service with a smile. And I've noticed that newer McDonald's stores have replaced counter servers with ordering kiosks that require the customer to enter his own order and process his own payment. McDonald's recently converted an old but friendly store here to the new model. Every customer I've talked to about the new store dislikes it. All this is important since corporate America has already offshored the jobs that could be relocated easily. Now they are coming for the service sector too. Anybody remember the automat?
Kudos to those Starbucks employees for this, small, okay, maybe tiny achievement, but an important one. Yes, the Reagan years ushered in the high gear (started in the late 60's) neoliberal crush-the-unions, claw-back-worker benefits moment in our history. Today employees are dealing with a nuclear labor environment that they are fighting to redress. Wishing you constant, unwavering support in this worthy endeavor for an American quality of life.
You go Starbucks employees!
Solidarity forever! Until workers of all varieties get a fair portion of the wealth they create, nearly every other social problem we face (housing? health? violence? education? labor "shortage"?) will remain rooted, with just some pruning around the edges. I'm reminded that Henry Ford - despicable in many ways - had one understanding that today's corporations have forgotten - your workers are your customers. And, I add, your ambassadors, your recruiters, and your neighbors.