foodworkers

New Zealand’s newest union has captivated a workforce ignored by most unions around the world: young service-sector workers, many of them people of color in fast-food jobs.

The Unite union’s barnstorming approach has organized thousands of them, led strikes at McDonald’s and Starbucks, won significant raises for fast-food workers, and helped spearhead a successful effort by New Zealand’s unions to boost the national minimum wage.

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May 17, 2009 marks five years since baristas at a Starbucks in New York City announced their membership in the Industrial Workers of the World and launched a campaign open to employees throughout the company. A worker-led organizing effort with the legendary IWW at the world's largest coffee chain could have been a flash in the pan– brilliant and inspiring, but brief. But a fire was lit and a movement began. The idea that Starbucks workers could organize themselves and speak in their own voice, independent of company executives and union bureaucrats, could not be restrained.

The bosses did their best to defeat us, to bury any indication of our existence under a heap of lies and retaliatory firings. They tried to stamp us out, even as the campaign for secure jobs and a living wage burst from New York into Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota and beyond.

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The IWW Starbucks Workers Union has enthusiastically welcomed the first union of Starbucks workers in Latin America and has pledged support for the new endeavor. Starbucks baristas and shift supervisors in Chile have organized for respect on the job, a dependable work schedule, and a living wage, among other issues. Supporters of the new union, Sindicato de Trabajadores de Starbucks Coffee Chile S.A., can learn more about the effort on their website http://sindicatosbux.blogspot.com/.

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Slammed by slowing consumer demand and laying off workers by the score, Starbucks Coffee found fresh reason for grief Friday when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) said it found evidence of labor violations at its Mall of America stores.

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First, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers took on fast food.

Then came natural food.

Now, it's targeting campus and corporate food, with a powerful new ally pledging support - and dollars - to the group's Campaign for Fair Food.

California-based Bon Appetit Management, one of the country's biggest food service companies, has agreed to pay a penny more per pound for Florida tomatoes and to adhere to a strict code of conduct - as have McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, Whole Foods Markets and others.

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Shortly before the inauguration of President Barack Obama, the manager of a Whole Foods grocery store in the San Francisco Bay Area gathered his employees in a conference room for a chat about labor organizing. “This is not a union-bashing thing whatsoever,” the manager began, adding, however, that he’d called the meeting because Whole Foods believed Obama would sign the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation intended to ease unionization that was opposed by the company’s lobbyists. According to a tape of the meeting obtained by Mother Jones, the manager went on to imply that joining a union would lead to reprisals: “It’s interesting to note that once you become represented by the union,” he said, “basically everything, every benefit you have, is kind of thrown out the window, and you renegotiate a contract.”

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(New York)—Five hundred and fifty gourmet grocery workers will receive nearly $1.5 million in unpaid wages, thanks to the efforts of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1500.

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New Bedford Standard Times
February 20, 2009 6:00 AM

NEW BEDFORD — About 25 protesters rallied Thursday in front of the Burger King on Cove Road to bring attention to policies they say discourage unionization.

The protest also focused on Burger King's relationship to Goldman Sachs, a major Wall Street investment bank that took billions of dollars in federal bailout money and paid large bonuses to its executives. Goldman Sachs is a part-owner of Burger King.

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Brandworkers Denounces Bribe Offers as Wild Edibles' Latest Attempt to Avoid Accountability to Employees

New York, NY (02/03/2009) - Brandworkers, a non-profit for retail and food employees, announced today that several of its members from Wild Edibles, Inc. have been offered bribes to end a 16-month workplace accountability campaign directed at the company. While refusing to pay what is owed in ongoing federal court and Labor Board litigation, Wild Edibles owner Richard Martin and one of his lieutenants have been offering cash payments to workers if they revoke their membership in Brandworkers and repudiate a worker-led public education campaign regarding rights abuses at the seafood processor and retailer.

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