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Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#241

Post by Eric_WVGG »

dragonwriter wrote: post #159
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically in the case of Starbucks, they absolutely think they are. Does anyone besides me remember that CEO Howard Schultz thought he should be president back in 2016? This whole thing just makes me want to shout from the rooftops: We do not have a left-wing party in the United States! The Democrats are anti-union and pro-austerity. We have a center-right party and a far-right party, that's it!

> Specifically in the case of Starbucks, they absolutely think they are. Specifically in the case of Starbucks, progressives do not think they are.

I thought I implied that pretty heavily, but yes, I agree.

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#242

Post by kazen44 »

thwayunion wrote: post #173
salawat wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's different. IRS is an extension of the U.S. Government itself, and as a Citizen/resident, you are required to work with them. You are absolutely free to never associate with them as an employee, however. Important distinction.

> You are absolutely free to never associate with them as an employee, however. Important distinction. You do not have that freedom in the USA. The Constitution is very clear on this question: Congress has the right to demand your forced employment. Congress hasn't seen fit to do so for many decades, but it has every right to do so and you have no de jure right to refuse employment.

Isn't this the case in every nation? The state has a monopoly on violence and is actually in control of the functioning of the country. By extensions to this, they also are able to "forceful" employ you.

Mind you, in many countries this isn't even relevant compared to what economic system the country is in. (heck, in some countries people swear allegiance to the literal ruler of a country before becoming a citizen).

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#244

Post by AnthonyMouse »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #137
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the situation seems materially different for a large company like Starbucks, where each physical location is only a small part of their overall business operations. Each location is differently situated. One might have higher real estate costs or taxes or more competitors or fewer customers or antagonistic local politicians etc. There are so many things that go into store closures that they could always find a…

>There are so many things that go into store closures that they could always find a plausible pretext. Then why did Starbucks, no doubt availing themselves of very well-paid labor lawyers, lose this case to the NLRB? For these examples at least they were not able to provide plausible pretexts.

They did not lose this case for want of a plausible reason to close a store.

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#245

Post by lordnacho »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #46
ensignavenger wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What power would a union have if the company is willing to close the unionized location? If they were required to keep the store "open" but the union strikes, the union is basically closing the location for the company.

It's a power imbalance. Starbucks can close one trying-to-unionize location because they have 3 others in a few block radius in some cities, and in doing so ensure the other 3 stores are too scared to unionize. If all 4 stores in a town unionized, Starbucks can withdraw from the town because they have 16 stores in a neighboring city, so and in doing so intimidate them. There is no equivalent behavior a worker can hav…

The power imbalance arises from a lack of competition. That needs to be addressed as well.

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#246

Post by notch898a »

kazen44 wrote: post #239
notch898a wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds nice in practice but there are desperate people out there. A strike provides those people with opportunities. Prisoner's dillema keeps them from sacrificing themselves for a union that sees them as the out-group.

one could argue that those people, in the end would be better off by actually joining the union and demanding better rights. There is a reason socialism is inherently internationalist. Capitalistic society is not bound by national borders, and thus the exploitation of labour is a class issue that tranceeds national boundaries. Workers in different places are far more similar then people from different class in the sa…

Are we talking about unions or socialism? I don't see unionism as an inherently anti-capitalist construct. It's a contract amongst workers and business owners. As with all contracts, their value tends to be dependent on your individual situation. It's even possible for unions to be anti-socialist, by constraining access to a select few creating elevated wages for the in-group while shielding access to that value from the out-group.

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#247

Post by softveda »

nerdponx wrote: post #5

I want to know about closing stores in apparent retaliation against unionizing. This has been happening lately in Boston, with the Cambridge Milk Bar location and the Boylston Starbucks location. It seems like that's the new corporate tactic to try to discourage unionizing. Of course, if every store unionized, then they'd be forced to concede at some point that they still need to keep stores open in order to make mon…

Is this a US thing? Unions/store. In Australia the union negotiation is organisation wide and covers all of Australia. The agreements are lodged, certified by Fair Work Australia and publicly searchable. In that case closing one store has no effect.

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#248

Post by SamReidHughes »

pwinnski wrote: post #193
SamReidHughes wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it worked that way, then if a company was going to shut down any unprofitable store, the workers could unionize as a trick to keep their jobs.

All of these situations are always adjudicated by a government bureaucracy that's often more inclined to side with companies than workers, in this case the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). So it would work in that case exactly like it worked in this case: workers start trying to unionize, company lets workers go, workers appeal to the NLRB, saying they were let go because of the unionization efforts, and the NL…

Ah yes, so you just wait interminably for a hearing and spend thousands on lawyers before you can close your store.

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#249

Post by giancarlostoro »

supernova87a wrote: post #133

Can news articles/reporters ever quote the actual original court ruling that they use to source their stories? I find it amazingly rare that journalists feel that they should show people where they get the key finding of their story, and rather lazily present their story as if they were the controlling authority and only source of information. Given how rich the original information is to link to (like, a 200 page PD…

> Can news articles/reporters ever quote the actual original court ruling that they use to source their stories?

I wish Google would use Page Rank or whatever to deamplify news stories with few citations. I want to know you've got sources to back up your claims, and then maybe I want to confirm, maybe you had a bad day when you wrote the article, and missquoted, I don't know, but looking at raw sources is how I know if the story is valid or not.

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#250

Post by barry-cotter »

deburo wrote: post #217
binarymax wrote: post #10

Just a tangent that it's strange this is a local story for me (Rochester NY) and there is no local coverage - had to go all the way to the UK to learn about this!

Why is the BBC even reporting on this?

US news is at least as important to the UK as news of all of Europe combined if not more since it’s the biggest source of cultural imports and where its leaders and academics who don’t go to university at home go. This is broadly true for most countries which is why US news is news everywhere.
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