C (9:32)

Hello, thanks for having me.

A (9:33)

What Starbucks did you work in?

C (9:36)

I worked at the very first one to unionize back in 2021, which is the Elmwood Avenue location in Buffalo, New York.

A (9:43)

I've heard about the Elmwood Avenue location. What about that one do you think made it the first to unionize?

C (9:50)

I don't know exactly. I mean, Buffalo is, is a pretty big union town. This particular location was a long standing location in that community. It's a cafe store, so a lot of like foot traffic, a lot of regular customers, a lot of community around it. And I think it was just ripe. The moment that we started organizing was a pretty tumultuous moment, not only within the company, but within the world. You know, it was the, the peak of the COVID pandemic and workers were really feeling pretty let down by their employers in a lot of cases. And Starbucks employees in particular, I think were feeling, feeling the hit pretty hard. And so when that became presented itself as an option, it seemed like, of course this is the option, you know, like, let's try to make things better. Let's try to make things better for ourselves. And our community just really rallied behind us immediately. And I think that is what allowed us to be that first store.

A (10:51)

Were you a barista?

C (10:52)

I was, yeah. At that point I had been with Starbucks for 11 years, so it had been a long time.

A (10:58)

How much pay do you get after 11 years working at Starbucks, at the.

C (11:03)

Time that we unionized, I was making, gosh, just over maybe 1675 an hour or something.

A (11:12)

Oh, wow. What's the New York State minimum wage? It's not much lower than that.

C (11:16)

No, at that point I think it was about 15 or 15. I think it was 15. And I think the starting wage at the company at that point was 1570 or something. It was, it was, you know, not what I should have been making. After spending 11 years with a company that makes billions of dollars a year.

A (11:34)

Would other cities, if you were working in New York City or a tighter labor market, would it have been much higher?

C (11:41)

I don't know exactly what, what the wages are across the board. I think, yes, they do go up a little bit in high cost living areas, but it's also a high cost living area. So is that wage, you know, does that wage make a difference? You know, if you're living someplace where you're paying double for rent or triple for rent and you're making, you know, $2 more an hour, $3 more an hour, does that matter? Does that make a big difference when it comes to, you know, what you're taking home and.

A (12:09)

Right.

C (12:10)

And being able to live off of. Right.

A (12:12)

Of course, you could argue the other side of it was something like, well, you live in Buffalo and things aren't as expensive as New York. But I definitely do understand what happened next. Unionizing in other stores or just fighting to keep the union there in the Elmwood Avenue location.

C (12:29)

As soon as we won, I think we won on December 9, 2021, there were actually two locations in Buffalo that, that won that day. And then it was just a complete waterfall of workers reaching out from stores across the country wanting to organize their store. Because the issues that we were organizing over in Buffalo existed across the country. You know, short staffing, facilities issues, health and safety issues. Take home pay obviously was a big problem and workers saw that this was possible now and they wanted to be a part of that.

A (13:03)

So where were the. I quoted the statistic of 500 or I referenced this statistic. The one I have in front of me says 570. Unions. What's the. And that's from a couple months ago. So what's the latest? How many stores are unionized?

C (13:18)

Over 650.

A (13:19)

Okay, 650. And the 10,000 figure, is that Starbucks worldwide or in the U.S. i believe.

C (13:26)

I don't know the exact figure. I believe it's somewhere just under 10,000. Is usually market. The US market. Yeah.

A (13:34)

So why have 96%. Nope, sorry. 94, 93% of Starbucks stores not unionized.

C (13:41)

Well, it's hard. It's definitely hard. The company has not really been happy about it. It's not like they've been stepping aside and willing to just let their, their workers organize. They've been fighting tooth and nail. I'm sure you've seen a lot of the reports. They are right now the most egregious union busting company in modern labor history. Hundreds of violations of U.S. labor law. And those violations, those are workers rights that they're violating. When workers stand up and say, hey, we want to organize with our co workers, we want to join a union, they're then violating labor law to try to stop their employees from joining a union. If they had just said, hey, yeah, you're right, this is a good idea. We'll be on the right side of history with this one. I think you would have seen a lot more than that. But 650 plus stores is not an insignificant number. That's over 12,000 unionized Starbucks workers right now, which is, you know, it's a pretty good number.

A (14:41)

Are there some states where it's almost impossible to unionize in some states, maybe New York where it's a lot easier?

C (14:47)

You would think that, I mean there are certainly states within the U.S. where you know, right to work states, states and it's notoriously, supposedly very difficult to organize in the South. However, this campaign seems to have transcended that. We have a lot of unionized locations in the southern part of New York. We have a lot of unionized locations and red states and in right to work states. So that hasn't hindered our organizing.

A (15:13)

Are your demands mostly? I heard there were workplace, workplace safety, pay. Is it mostly a monetary issue that for you and that the, and that the company itself is objecting to where.

C (15:28)

We stand right now with negotiations. I would say that though the, the standstill revolves around economic issues. In particular fixing the staffing issues within our store, which ultimately, you know, that is a monetary issue, right? You have, you have more employees on the floor, you're paying out more money. Now I would argue you have the appropriate amount of staffing in your store. You're giving a better customer experience, you're bringing in more customers and that's the trade off for that. You have the appropriate staffing, then you can give the right experience to your customers. I started with this company in 2010 and staffing was not an issue until recently. You walked into a Starbucks. I don't know how Many Starbucks you've ever gone into, lots of people go into them every day and you would see six, seven people on the floor working, doing their jobs, providing quality product in a reasonable amount of time. You walk into some of these stores today, you're going to see two, maybe three workers doing the job of six workers. Customers are waiting for an exorbitant amount of time and they're paying, you know, in some cases double what you were paying, you know, a few years ago for your beverage. So to me, the trade off is, yeah, we, we would like to fix the staffing in our stores, but it's not just because we don't want to. I don't want to be doing the job of three separ people. It's because that allows me to do my job better and to give customers a better experience. And then, yes, take home pay is obviously an issue. Those two things go hand in hand. If your workers, you know, I could be making $30 an hour, but if I'm only scheduled 12 hours a week and I can't, you know, I'm not being scheduled more than that, that, you know, those things have to go hand in hand. What we make an hour and the hours we're able to be scheduled a week have to go together.

A (17:18)

So one story that made the news that I covered on the just list, which is a substack I do, was there was a lawsuit by members of your union when the parent company instituted a dress code. And I'll let you explain what the lawsuit was over. Part of it was that the dress code wasn't reimbursed. So the requirement was that workers would have to wear black T shirts or black long sleeve shirts. And then there was a wide variety of a pair of pants and then certain appropriate shoes which to me just scanned as shoes. I would think that most people would have shoes. So the question is, maybe this was misreported and I'm getting something wrong. I also understand as a worker, if I was required to buy something I didn't have for my job, I'd like it to be reimbursed. And yet I also know that every restaurant worker in America, unionized or unionized, if they're not wearing a work provided uniform, every server in every mom and pop restaurant or some restaurant, that's where the owner has two or three, has to buy their own clothes for work. But am I getting anything wrong? Is that, was that basically the underpinnings of the lawsuit?

C (18:28)

So I think we're talking about two different things. There was A civil action lawsuit which was brought by Starbucks workers. In regards to what you're speaking about, there are certain cities and certain states in the country where there are laws that exist that say if a work, if it's the employer's responsibility to provide, you know, either the full uniform or certain reimbursement for parts of the uniform, and that. That's there. Those are the regulations within those municipalities. So the union itself did not bring this lawsuit. These were workers at locations in Starbucks where, you know, these. These areas were governed by those regulations. And the company didn't hold up that end of the bargain.

A (19:09)

Okay, but they. The workers brought it, but the union backed them.

C (19:13)

We. We did not back them. I think there's the other thing. I mean, we're not against them. We think that workers should. But these are. These workers are taking this on themselves. There was also a charge filed, an unfair labor practice charge filed around dress code for the union stores, which stated that the company. This was a change in working conditions. It was a unilateral change in working conditions. And when you're dealing with unionized locations and unionized workers, those workers have the right to bargain over that change. And, you know, the company didn't give the union workers the result, the. The option to bargain over that dress code change. So there's two. There's a couple of different things going on when it comes to the dress code policy. That was.

A (19:56)

Oh, I'll just read from the AP story. The employees who are backed by the union organizing Starbucks workers filed class action lawsuits in state courts in Illinois and Colorado. So that's wrong.

C (20:07)

To the best of my knowledge, when we're dealing with, like, civil action lawsuits, we can't, you know, we can say, yeah, we support these workers, but we can't finance or do any kind of that element.

A (20:18)

Right, right. I guess there's. There's some ambiguity. Backed. Right. The word back means money or could mean thumbs up, I guess.

C (20:25)

Yes. We obviously support workers standing up for their rights wherever they're able to do that. Yes.

A (20:29)

Also from the same article. Actually, I might have picked this from another article. The dress code prohibits employees from having face tattoos or more than one facial piercing. Tongue piercings and, quote, theatrical makeup are also prohibited. Does the union object to that?

C (20:44)

We do, because this was not. This is a change in policy. So there are workers that were hired with multiple facial piercings, with tattoos on their faces, around their neck. They were hired into this company, and then after they were hired, they were told, sorry, you actually can't have those Things. So it's not like, you know, I was working for Starbucks for 10 years. I knew I couldn't go get my nose pierced, and I went and got my nose pierced tomorrow. And then I was like, disciplined for it and told I couldn't have it. These are people hired into the company with these pre existing and then all of a sudden being told, actually, no, you can't have that. So, yes, that, that is absolutely an issue.

A (21:23)

So I get, I get that point. And unless we're talking about Maori tribal tattoos with if, if it's a cosmetic tattoo, I do wonder what is the answer? Can a company not change course? And admittedly, once hired people with facial tattoos, now they're going for a different look, a different vibe, a different message, and they don't want those employees anymore. What would be. Since facial tattoos and surgery to remove them are really expensive and really painful, what would be the recourse that the company has, according to the union? Nothing.

C (21:57)

Well, in terms of what we, what how it goes with a union location is you need to bargain with the union over that. We need to go, we need to talk about it. Changes cannot just be instituted within a union shop with unionized workers without talking and coming to some sort of arrangement. If you're asking my personal opinion, if someone was hired with four piercings and a facial tattoo and then two months later they were told, sorry, that actually doesn't fit our dress code anymore, I think that person should be grandfathered in to be told, hey, we were okay hiring you with this, and now we're not. Now you're out the door and this person has no notice or very little notice. I think that's kind of absurd. Especially when we're talking about a coffee shop. We're talking, I mean, walk into any coffee shop in the US and for the most part, people are allowed to express themselves. I don't care what the, you know, I don't care. As long as the barista is clean, it's not a health or safety issue. What do I care what they're wearing or, you know, how many piercings they have when they're making or serving my latte?

A (23:00)

Yeah, I, I personally think, I disagree, especially on the facial tattoo issue. But your point of. That's why we have collective bargaining. And if there was collective bargaining in this situation, if the union, if the union members decided that this was a priority, there could be something, some fun to compensate the people who were let go, if they were, if they had a facial tattoo. So what is Right. So right now with your stores unionized, but a collective bargaining not recognized. What is the law governing all of these issues?

C (23:36)

Well, I mean we still have the right, legally they have to bargain with us. We have the right to demand that they bargain with us. We have done that. It has gone unanswered, at least in terms of these what they would consider unilateral changes. And this is, this is effects bargaining like we're bargaining over the effects of a policy change as opposed to contract bargaining, which is what we're also, which is what we're also fighting right now, which is to get an actual collective bargaining first contract, you know, ratified and solidified within the company. So the laws still stand. The company is legally obligated to bargain with the union members. They have not done that so far. So a charge has been filed and now it, you know, makes its way through the legal system.

A (24:16)

In October, Starbucks sued Workers United. You guys saying a pro Palestinian social media post from a union account early in the Israel Hamas war angered hundreds of customers and damaged its reputation. What do you say to that charge?

C (24:31)

Well that was dropped to the best of my knowledge. This was From October of 2023 I believe was when that was filed. We also counter filed a suit saying, you know, what they alleged is that our union logo was too similar to the company's logo and therefore there was confusion and customers didn't know what was what, whether it was a union account or whether it was a company account. We argued that wasn't the case and to the best of my knowledge that has been settled. Both sides came to an agreement and charges on both sides have been dropped for that.

A (25:09)

Okay, what would the advantage of a person who wants to work in a Starbucks in Buffalo by working in your Starbucks, a unionized Starbucks versus working in. I said a person who wants to work in a Starbucks, a person who wants to work in a coffee shop. So the question is working in your unionized Starbucks right now, as things stand, not the potential, but as things actually are, versus working in the Pete's coffee shop down the street. I don't even know if they have them in Buffalo, but some other national chain coffee shop without unionization. Gimme the pitch.

C (25:46)

We don't, we don't have a Pete's, but I don't. I guess I would need to know what the existing benefits are within the non union coffee shop to be able to call. But what I can tell you that that within a unionized location we have protections that just simply are not going to exist even without a contract that you're not going to have in a non union workshop anywhere. You just saw the big announcement of the hundreds of store closures that were enacted. An example of the power that the union workers had that the non union workers didn't is that they were able to bargain over the effects of that closure and were able to secure benefits that the non union employees just simply didn't have. And that is incredibly important to note because these workers were left high and dry three days notice before their stores closed permanently. And some were offered transfers, some were not. And in our case we were able to say look, that's bullshit. You can't just give workers three days notice. Especially when this is something that was a long time coming. We know from company statements that they knew about these closures last spring and chose to give as little notice as possible to workers. So in our case we were able to secure severance for workers who couldn't take the transfer. Whereas the non union workers, if they turned down a transfer because maybe the location didn't work for them or whatever, multitude of reasons, they got absolutely nothing.

A (27:13)

I was reading a Reddit that I guess anyone can join, but it's for Starbucks employees. It's called, what do you call them internally? Team members?

C (27:24)

Partners.

A (27:25)

Partners. Thank you. Yes, and the union doesn't seem to be overwhelmingly popular or at least there is a robust discussion. And people who it should be in their self interest according to everything you're saying have a lot of rebuttals about joining the union. And a big one is I think that I will not make appreciably more money. Especially when you factor in that joining a union takes away union dues. People look at the economics of Starbucks CEO salary notwithstanding, they say right now it's not in expansion mode, it's Starbucks isn't doing so great. And I think in at least many of these peoples, unless they're plants or moles in their perceived self interest, they make the case and it seems pretty convincing to me they make the case that this is a bad economic decision for them. The average worker. What would you say to them? Or do you think that they should not be taken seriously?

C (28:31)

I mean I obviously disagree with that. Lots and lots of research has shown that the average union worker makes a certain percentage higher in wages than the non union worker. Of course that is once a contract is secured. We are not dealing with a small company. Regardless of whether or not Starbucks is an expansion mode or not, they are a multi billion dollar corporation. You know, they have enough money to pay a CEO billions of Dollars for just a few months of work. They have enough money to throw a $481 million store manager retreat for three days in Vegas, which they just did this past June. Money is not the issue here. Aside from the economic gains, which I'm sorry, I just disagree completely that they would not gain anything because there's never going to be a contract ratified by Starbucks workers where there is not an economic gain. We wouldn't have fought this hard for this long to walk away with nothing. You're also getting a significant number of protections that you just are simply not going to get. You're at the will of the company to do the right thing as opposed to having some sort of power and backing behind you like you would have with a union contract. Right now, Starbucks is an at will employer. They can fire you for nothing. They don't even have to give you a reason. We are working to get just cause in a contract so that they have to say, look, this is why we're terminating you as a Starbucks. As any worker, you should want that. You should want the ability to fight an unlawful termination. You know, if your store manager just doesn't like you, technically speaking, they can, they can fire you and you can't demand any information beyond that. That's not acceptable. In cases like these, store closures, workers were literally left high and dry four days to figure out where they were going to get their paycheck from. And for, at the very least, we were able to get union workers some level of severance so that they, they had a little bit of a buffer before they could, you know, while they were looking for their, their next level of employment. There's also a lot of health and safety issues we've been fighting in this company. There's a lot of, I mean, I don't know if this is shocking or not, but service workers deal with a significant level of harassment, you know, from customers. Lots of, there's sexual harassment, there's actual harassment. You know, workers have been followed to their cars, workers have been followed to their homes. There's almost zero protections this company offers. And we have fought very hard to help bring attention to that and get some sort of codified language within a contract that would make it so that the company has to protect their workers. I don't know why anyone, even if it's minimal, even if what you gain from a union contract is minimal, it's still more than what you'll ever get. Just hoping that the company does the right thing.

A (31:18)

Michelle Eisen worked as a barista for 15 years at Starbucks and she's an organizer of the Starbucks union. Workers United. Starbucks Workers United. Thank you so much, Michelle.

C (31:28)

Thank you so much.

A (31:37)

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B (31:58)

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A (32:31)

And now the spiel. In 1987, Ronald Reagan gave a speech about not liking tariffs. In 2025, the government of Ontario began playing portions of that speech to television viewers in the United States.

D (32:46)

High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs.

A (33:02)

Actual words of an actual Republican president representing his actual opinion. Here is how the current Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, described this ad on Meet the Press.

D (33:14)

Well, Kristen, let's, let's think about this. This is a kind of propaganda against US Citizens. You know, it's, it's psyops. Why, why would the government of Ontario, I'm told that they've spent the half spent or were planning to spend up to $75 million on these ads that come across the US border. So what, what was the purpose of that other than to sway public opinion? And, you know, it's some kind of propaganda that the premier of Ontario unilaterally.

A (33:48)

Launched a psyop, like leafletting the native population in a war zone or having a corpse dressed as a British officer wash ashore in Spain, as in Operation Mincemeat. If there ever was a psyops, it was pulled by master manipulator Donald Trump, who incepted his often sensible treasury secretary into getting into an insult war with Doug Ford, the premier of Canada. Terrible judgment by this premier, who is a bit of a reputation for being a hothead, said Bessant. Yeah, a hothead. By cutting together a rather effective television commercial with Reagan's own words, in fact, Trump wanted an excuse for headlines and what he would portray as leverage. Fine, Doug Ford, by the way, was a bit of a hothead, bit of a jingoist, bit of a nationalist, and maybe wouldn't even be in the position of being the premier of Ontario except when threatened by the great power to the South. Nationalism kicks in in the great white North. Now, you want a real Canuck wackadoo, that'd be Doug's brother, Rob. Rob Ford. The late Rob Ford. Now, you're talking about a Ford who wasn't stable. But if you're talking about affording staples, well, then. Kristen Welker, host of Meet the Press, press the price of meat in her own conversation with Bessant.

C (35:15)

Mr. Secretary, coffee prices are up 19% from a year ago. Beef is up almost 15% and bacon up almost 6%, just to name a few. So when are all grocery prices going to come down, as President Trump promised?

A (35:32)

Yeah, so that seems like an unfair question to me. Donald Trump said he'd bring some prices down, but the price of every single thing isn't going down. Bacon. We need to talk about bacon on this show. Lots of things going on in the world, but bacon's up 6 cents. Good answer would have been, you know, bacon's bad for you. Maybe skip the bacon. Better answer is what Scott Bessant said.

D (35:56)

Well, Christine, you know, it's unfortunate. As much as I like you, you like to cherry pick. So, you know, when we came in, it was eggplation. Eggplation. Eggplation. You know, egg prices are down, Gasoline prices are down. Overall, the inflation since President Trump has come in the. Has come down. We inherited this terrible, terrible affordability crisis from the Biden administration. The first thing we had to do was get it under control. And this month's inflation number was actually below the consensus number. If we look at core inflation, it was.2%, which was the lowest it's been in a, in a long time. Rents are coming down. So you know it, Christine. You don't get to cherry pick.

A (36:40)

You can't do that. You can't say, some bacon, some meat, some Ho Hos, but not snowballs. Can't do that. Here are the things that are up. You list those. You got to list the average of things that are down. And take the average also. I don't think anyone goes into the grocery store and they might be shocked by the price of meat, but if they see a bunch of deals on the price of soup and cereal and then they go to checkout and it's a lot less than it was or what in their head is what it should be I don't know how much they're blaming the President. Maybe if their friends were snatched up by a masked ICE agent, they are blaming the President, just not about groceries. If I were Kristen Welker, I got to say I would have anticipated Scott Bessant's counterargument. In fact, I would have kind of forced him into it. Maybe a little bit of a psyops, because I would know I was cherry picking and therefore I would know that I'd be accused of cherry picking. And when Besson accused me of cherry picking, I would say, fine, put aside bacon and beef. You raised it. Let's talk cherries. Headline Smart Cherry World Global Cherry Production Collapses. Prices Soar Production crises in Turkey, Europe and the US have reduced the global cherry supply. The latest report from the USDA projects that global production will fall by more than 10%. Anyway, that would have been better than what did happen, which was what about bacon? Answer what about gas? Question Trump promised it it all be lower. Answer it is lower. Look at all the prices. Question Are we at war with Venezuela? Answer I'm the Treasury Secretary. Question why is there a hole in the White House? Answer I'm the Treasury Secretary, but maybe there was asbestos or mold. He said that. He really said that. It was a great interview where we had accusations of mind control and examples of mindlessness. Meanwhile, the tariff deal is suspended with Canada and therefore I'm not sure if the Blue Jays have to plate eight runs in order to count six against the Dodgers and if the price of bacon will continue to go up and down in concert with my cholesterol levels. And this has been meat depressed. That's it for today's show. Corey War is the producer of the Gist. Jeff Craig runs our Social. Kathleen Sykes helps me on the just list very much and Michelle Pesca helps us all so very much. See the error of our ways and the wisdom of our future. And thanks for listening.

B (39:28)

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