The American labor movement has suffered decades of decline in our post-industrial economy, as manufacturing jobs have left the country in search of cheaper labor. But some workers are not so easily displaced. The people repairing our roads, building our houses, cooking us food, giving us our flu shot, ringing us up at the grocery store – and the people making our coffee – cannot so easily have their jobs sent to other countries.
These service workers are not any different from industrial era steel workers in that they are feeling the disparity in wages between CEOs and the people actually delivering value. The CEO of Starbucks makes 6,000 times what the median barista makes, and the CEO of Tesla wants to make $90 billion a year. A barista can bring in a $1,000 of revenue and take home $100 in pay. How can that be equitable?
We may be living in Trump's Billionaire Gilded Fantasy, but we don't have to swallow it without a fight. In fact, nearly 70% of Americans approve of labor unions, a return to late '50s / early 60's levels.
The documentary Baristas vs. Billionaires had its first screening west of New York City on Monday, and it tells the story of the effort to unionize Starbucks stores, starting in Buffalo, NY. It follows the courageous work of a group of employees who knew their working conditions were unsafe, unfair, and unsustainable. Some were making $15/hr after 13 years as a barista - in an area where the living wage for a single adult with no children is more than $21/hr.
They eventually tapped into the notion of labor organizing as a means to pursue dignity of work. Putting the lie to the lore of Starbucks as a progressive employer, the organizers were met with vitriol and the tactics of the resolutely anti-union CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schulz.
Over the past 18 months Starbucks has waged the most aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign in the modern history of our country. The fundamental issue we are facing today is whether we have a system of justice that applies to all — or whether billionaires and large corporations can break the law with impunity.
– Bernie Sanders [NPR article]
This documentary is enlightening and contains a thread of hope – even though the effort is still ongoing for Starbucks workers to get a contract, their organizing effort grew from the "not likely to ever happen" stage in Buffalo, NY to over 600 stores having been unionized – much of that despite a continued violations by Starbucks of NLRB rulings and a hostile Supreme Court. But they have shown the way for service workers to organize, and through organization obtain better working conditions and pay. And young people are leading the effort – some who didn't even know what a union was are now the new leaders of a growing, modern labor movement.
This story is told in an efficient 75 minutes, and is well worth the time to get a perspective on why and how we need to reboot our American labor movement. It'll be showing at CCA from November 14 to 27. See it – it's worth the watch.
