(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
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Starbucks Workers Are Unionizing. Their Bosses Are Refusing to Bargain. [1]
['Bryce Covert', 'Rebekah Entralgo', 'Steven Greenhouse', 'Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling', 'Kim Phillips-Fein', 'Timothy Noah', 'Jess Bergman', 'Illustration Alex Nabaum']
Date: 2023-01-05
The most powerful tool employers have is to delay, and there are plenty of ways they can do it. As in the case of Amazon, they can turn around and challenge the outcome of a successful election and continue appealing any decisions in favor of the union.
If the union clears that hurdle, an employer is supposed to begin bargaining, but companies concoct any number of reasons to refuse. Starbucks workers have filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board over the company’s objection to hybrid sessions, claiming it’s violating labor law by not bargaining in good faith. That, too, is a slow process—the charge will have to be investigated by the NLRB general counsel and then adjudicated by the board. Even then, the company can appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court. If the union prevails, the only penalty levied on Starbucks would be a requirement to sit down and bargain. It would face no fines for breaking the law. Employers “have absolutely nothing to lose except attorneys’ fees if [they] take every opportunity to delay sitting down at that bargaining table,” Block said. Meanwhile the employer gains years of not having to grant any of the union’s demands.
In the intervening time, the union itself has to be “in a perpetual organizing mode,” Block said, keeping up enthusiasm so that members are ready to put pressure on the company whenever bargaining commences. Energy can easily fizzle as workers wonder whether it was worth it to stick their necks out for a union that hasn’t secured anything for them. At the same time, the unions that are most successful in securing first contracts are generally those that have organized the majority of a company’s worksites. “It’s a catch-22, because, in order to get a contract, they have to organize more workplaces,” said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at the Cornell University School of Labor and Industrial Relations. The ALU has already faced this predicament: Should it focus its time and resources on unionizing more warehouses or on fighting for a first contract on Staten Island?
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[1] Url:
https://newrepublic.com/article/169580/starbucks-workers-unionizing-bosses-refusing-bargain
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