 You just watched Starbucks employees in Buffalo, New York react to news that they had successfully voted to form the first union in Starbucks's history, which is just crazy considering that that was now more than a year ago. But they've come a long way since the first store voted to unionize back on December 9th of 2021, and Matt Brunig of the People's Policy Project puts it all into perspective because when you step back and look at how many unions have formed since then, it is truly mind-blowing. He explains on December 9th of 2021, 19 Starbucks workers in Buffalo voted to unionize with Starbucks Workers United, an SEIU-affiliated union for Starbucks workers. In the next 365 days, 3,626 more Starbucks workers joined with the initial 19, resulting in 267 unionized Starbucks stores covering around 6,951 Starbucks employees. The speed and success of the Starbucks unionization campaign had been astonishing. Last year, the Starbucks campaigners unionized a new store every 1.3 days. Over this period, the Starbucks union had accounted for 21% of all NLRB election victories. Now he provided us with some graphics that really put into perspective how far they've come. There's been over 350 union election filings since August of 2021, and the win rate at least since mid-July has not fallen below 50%, which is insane. Now as workers are more successful, Starbucks is expectedly pushing back, thus leading to nearly 550 unfair labor practice violations being filed against the company since January of 2022. Now their success alone is impressive. Organizing a new store every 1.3 days is no small feat, but think about how difficult this was considering how hostile the company was towards these employees who were caught engaging in union activity. For example, Reuters reported in August that two stores that were set to hold union elections, one in Kansas City, Missouri and one in Seattle, Washington, were both shut down. Quote, Starbucks has closed 19 stores in the past few months, 42% of which had union activity, the union said. So you can't definitively attribute those store closures to union busting, but it is a little sus given that that Kansas City store was the second busiest in the area. Now Howard Schultz maintains that, oh well, some of these stores that are profitable and busy, we have to close them for security reasons. Okay, but since when has any company in the United States ever cared about the safety of their workers, ever cared about security, when they're making a lot of money, I mean the bottom line is increased profits, maximize shareholder value. So I just, I'm sorry, I don't buy that excuse from this company, but closing down stores isn't the only union busting tactic that Starbucks had engaged in because they also fired employees that were organizing unions at their stores. And the company was so brazen in their retaliation that a federal judge in Tennessee ordered the company to rehire seven employees that were fired at a location in Memphis after they were fired just for talking to media about organizing efforts, it's genuinely unhinged. But I mean, we're barely even scratching the surface. On October 12th, Seattle Times reported, Starbucks violated federal law in Kansas and Missouri by firing pro-union employees stepping up enforcement of its stress code in response to union organizing and asking for police to disperse workers with picket signs. And in total, Starbucks workers United claims that the company has fired 80 employees in total for organizing unions. Now that's not the only tactics, of course, that they're engaging in, closing stores, firing employees. These are things that you expect, but the company is so desperate that they created new benefits for employees and they specifically excluded union workers to send this message to anyone else who's going to vote to form a union. Hey, if you want these new benefits, then vote against that union. Otherwise, you're going to lose these benefits. It's just it's insane to me. And they're so brazen in their illegal union busting that the National Labor Relations Board demanded that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz apologize to workers on video while explaining their rights as workers to them. But don't take it from me. Take it from the workers themselves. We're going to hear from the workers at a Memphis store who were organizing the union. And these are all of the things that Starbucks did to punish them for engaging in union activity. Corporate and our district manager and store manager have been trying to stop our pro union protests. They've been trying to come in and intimidate us. So right now we have an interim store manager. And now she's bringing in all of her managers and all of her employees to our store and they're deliberately taking our hours. I went from working thirty five to thirty nine hours a week down to twenty six hours. And then I got benefits taken away. We're supposed to get a mark out. It's like a free drink, a free food item. Those were taken away from us. So we weren't even allowed to get markouts, like go to other stores and get markouts and stuff. And for some people, that's a whole meal that they rely on. There are some people who go to Starbucks to get that lunch item that they need because they can't afford specific things. They've been pulling policies out of a hat that we never heard of to try to intimidate us. It's not really stopping anything. It's actually putting fuel to the fire. That's how desperate they are to crush these unions. And that store in particular ended up closing down for a couple of days to stop the momentum that the employees were gaining. So when they knew that the media would come out to speak to these employees and picketers would show up, they just closed down the store. What was their excuse? Well, they said, oh, well, there was a covid outbreak, but the protocol before was not to shut down when somebody tested positive for covid. So they're grasping at straws to try to find ways to justify their union busting activity, but it's just union busting. Now, if that wasn't already incriminating enough, the company is also illegally stalling union negotiations because, of course, they are. This video was posted on September 19th by a more perfect union. And they kind of explained the situation here. It's like pulling teeth, trying to get anything from this company right now. Starbucks claims to be negotiating in good faith. We're committed to respecting the NLRB process. And we are now and will continue to bargain in good faith. The actuality is that we've only had a couple of bargaining sessions with two or three stores out of the over 230 unionized locations. What we've seen from the Starbucks representatives who have come to the table is indignant rage at the mere suggestion that somebody else would have any say in how even the most minor thing is done at the company. They don't want to hear workers talking about where the cake pops should go, let alone what their 401k should be or what health care benefits should be. And we have to demonstrate to our people they can trust us and we have to show up. Could you ever see doing that and embracing the union as part of it? No. Is that so? Well, too bad, Howard Schultz. So listen, despite all of this. These employees are winning. They're winning the battle at this rate. They may have every single Starbucks store unionized in just a couple of years. I mean, when you are able to organize a new store and vote to form a union successfully every 1.3 days, the momentum is not going to slow down. It's only going to speed up. So I wanted to share this story because oftentimes I talk about really negative things that make us feel hopeless and doomer. But this labor story really should give us a lot of optimism because think about this just a little more than a year ago, the first Starbucks store voted to form a union. And now look at how that effort has taken off in this country. Labor power is on the rise, and this is the one thing that I think is going to change this country for the better. Government very clearly is not a good tool for social change or economic change. And corporations can't be expected to do the right thing. And no, billionaires aren't going to save us. If there's going to be changes, it's going to come from the bottom up, not the top down and to see the ways in which these workers have overcome union busting and formed hundreds of unions within a single year. If that doesn't give you hope, then nothing will. So learn from these Starbucks employees and organize your own workplace, but understand what you're getting yourself into, know your rights and make sure that you have solidarity above all with these workers. Now, if you are going to purchase some gift cards for your family members this year, do not buy Starbucks gift cards. They're encouraging people to avoid gift cards and when you see a store organizing a union, don't cross that picket line. That's the one thing that you can do. Boycotts are very difficult in a capitalist system, but the one small thing that you can do to stand in solidarity with these workers is simply not cross the picket line. Don't buy gift cards this year and don't shop at a location that is trying to form a union. Take use from workers, talk to them and they'll they'll fill you in on what's going on. But either way, this is a really feel good story that I wanted to share and I appreciate Matt Brunig kind of putting it all into perspective for us.