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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Starbucks anti-union campaign hits new low |
Current rating: 0 |
by Mike Blain -- Seattle IMC
(No verified email address) |
21 Sep 2001
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Workers at Starbucks' roasting plant say the company is targeting union supporters for harassment and discipline, and refusing to negotiate a contract. One union supporter stranded on Sept. 11 has been disciplined for missing work. |
Starbucks Wants Double-Tall Non-Union Roasting Plant
Seattle, Wash. -- Don Goodson was given three black marks in his personnel file last week. He had missed several scheduled shifts at his job at Starbuck’s roasting plant just south of Seattle. His excuse: He just couldn’t make it in to work.
He says he called his Starbuck’s manager and explained why he would be unable to come in. When he returned to work he learned that he had been given three "occurrences." Nine such marks in his personnel file and he could be fired.
The reason Goodson had to miss work? He was stranded in Austin, Texas, at the tail end of his scheduled vacation. The day was September 11, 2001. In Austin, as in the rest of the nation, all commercial air traffic had been suspended in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington D.C.
Starbucks gives "occurrences" to workers (whom the company calls "partners") for things such as tardiness, unexcused work absences, safety violations, and shoddy work. And, apparently, for being stranded in another city after a terrorist attack shuts down all the nation’s commercial airlines. Goodson was told by his Starbucks manager that his phone call from Texas and verbal explanation of his absence were not enough. The derogatory marks would be entered into his file.
"It astounds me that they can go about treating people this way and get away with it," says Goodson.
When asked about the situation, Starbucks spokesperson Audry Linkoff said: "It is our policy not to comment on partner employment."
Workers Say Company Targets Union Supporters
Goodson is one of 18 mechanics and technicians employed at the Starbucks roasting facility, and a union supporter who has been active with the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) in its efforts to organize the plant in Kent, Wash. Despite having voted in the union more than two years ago, and after numerous negotiating sessions with the company, union organizers say Starbucks has yet to put a comprehensive contract offer on the table. They say the company is more interested in harassing and disciplining union supporters, and waging a battle of attrition until the company can drive out most union supporters and re-stock the bargaining unit with enough anti-union workers to win a decertification vote.
Starbucks hired Goodson five months ago, on the recommendation of an anti-union worker who was organizing a union decertification vote. Workers say Starbucks management thought Goodson could play a role in helping to vote the union out. But after he learned of the union’s contract proposals regarding a retirement plan, he says he decided to support the union. After the unsuccessful decertification vote, Starbucks managers claimed that Goodson made derogatory remarks to a co-worker. Despite witness accounts to the contrary, he was punished by being switched to the graveyard shift.
Goodson and other union supporters at the Starbucks roasting plant say that company managers exercise broad discretionary powers when giving out occurrences, liberally doling out the black marks to union supporters for any real or unsubstantiated infractions, while turning a blind eye to the tardiness, absences, safety violations, and other occurrence-worthy acts of Starbucks workers who oppose the unionization effort.
Roasting plant workers say one union supporter was given two occurrences for allegedly leaving a washer on a machine. The worker said he did not do so, but, at Starbucks, if you are a union supporter it appears you are guilty until proven innocent.
Employees tell of another anti-union worker they claim has physically threatened at least three union supporters, both at and away from work. One union supporter – the shop steward – recently filed a police report, and then quit his job, because he feared for his safety after being confronted and threatened by the anti-union employee outside of work. Union supporters say they have reported the threats and intimidation to Starbucks management, but their complaints have basically fallen on deaf ears. Goodson says Starbucks managers told the union supporters that they had "brought on" the confrontations.
"We just want an equitable deal we can all live with, and some standards that we all have to follow," said Goodson earlier this week, standing on the sidewalk in front of Starbuck’s corporate headquarters in South Seattle. Goodson was part of a group of about 25 union members and supporters, who were holding picket signs and handing out literature to passersby calling on the company to negotiate a fair contract.
Dry-Roasted, Bitter Blend
It was shortly after 10 pm on September 5, and James Gower had just begun his graveyard shift at the roasting facility in Kent. It was his first shift back at work after the Labor Day weekend, and after his August vacation with his wife and two children.
His Starbucks manager had just told him that he was being given a "first notification write-up" for a "no-show, no-call" absence because he had been scheduled to work on August 31 and did not show up.
Gower told the supervisor that he had been gone that day because it was the last day of his vacation. He explained how he had had requested the time off, submitted the proper paperwork, and had the time off approved before leaving on vacation. The manager told him that the company had lost his paperwork, and that he was going to be suspended for a day without pay.
He told his supervisor that he had copies of the documentation he had submitted requesting vacation time, and that he wanted a union representative present if they were going to be discussing any disciplinary action. The manager told him if that were the case, he needed to call the union rep (it was now about 10:30pm) and have someone come down right then. Gower said it was too late for that night, but that a union rep could come in first thing in the morning. The manager told him that the suspension stood.
"I was punished for standing up for myself," says Gower.
A union rep did later meet with Starbucks, and Gower eventually got the back pay he had been docked. But he says this was just one of several times in which he has been singled out for harassment or discipline because he is a union supporter. He points out that he had worked on the day shift for three years, and was abruptly switched to the graveyard shift because of his union activities.
"We are tired of them changing the rules every time we turn around," adds Gower, "depending on the person or the situation."
The Operating Engineers union has filed local, state and federal charges of intimidation, coercion, discrimination, health and safety violations and physical assault related to various incidents at the Starbucks roasting plant in Kent.
Extra Foam, Hold the Contract
Operating Engineers organizer Rene Jankiewicz says the union was holding the rally and picket in front of company headquarters not only to educate the public about the contract campaign, but to also remember those who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and to support all those who lost co-workers and families. She drew links between the call to protect and cherish the freedoms we enjoy in the United States, and the organizing drive. "The right to organize a union," says Jankiewicz, "is one of the fundamental rights we are trying to protect."
In its contract proposals, the union’s requests include a standardized wage scale, improved medical benefits, promotion based upon experience and demonstrable skill, and retirement benefits. The company has proposed granting a retirement benefit, but it would be in exchange for a wage freeze, no improvement in health benefit costs, and the revocation of some company stock benefits already in place.
In fact, according to union supporters, Starbucks has awarded at least one of the benefits the union is requesting – an increase in the company share of workers’ medical premiums from 75 percent to 90 percent – to all 270-plus non-union employees working in distribution and packing jobs, but not to the workers in the roasting facility. That is, the company raised the health benefits of all its Kent facility workers, except those in the unit that had voted for the union.
Starbucks spokesperson Linkoff would not address any specific questions about the union organizing campaign or contract negotiations. Instead, she provided the following company statement, titled "Media Statement on Kent Roasting Plant Union Activities," which was issued on Sept. 8, 2001:
"Starbucks fully respects workers’ rights and can assure you that we are doing everything possible to negotiate a fair contract for the mechanics and technicians at our Kent Roasting Plant."
Gower says such platitudes ring hollow based upon the company’s behavior thus far during negotiations. "They say they are trying to give us a contract, and then in their next proposal they go back and change things we already agreed upon."
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See also:
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=65873&group=webcast
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