International
Fledgling union efforts at Amazon, Starbucks dig in for long fight
AFP | Juliette Michel
Recent unionization drives at Starbucks and Amazon have lifted morale in the US labor movement, but organizers have yet to transform election victories into material change.
Moreover, some union backers such as Will Westlake have paid a price for their activism.
Formerly a Starbucks barista in Buffalo, New York, where the initial union votes took place in December 2021, Westlake was fired earlier this month — ostensibly for not removing a suicide prevention badge from his apron, which he has viewed as an expression of his solidarity with the movement.
But Westlake thinks his firing was payback for his union activism.
“I was number 123” on the list of Starbucks employees to lose their jobs as the campaign has spread to some 250 cafes nationwide, said Westlake.
Starbucks declined to comment on allegations from Starbucks Workers United that the company fired workers for union activism.
But such reprisals at US companies are “pretty routine in this country,” said Ruth Milkman, a sociologist at CUNY in New York.
Young activists
Milkman counts herself among the experts in labor relations who have been surprised at the spread of the union drives to a growing slate of corporations, including Apple, REI, Chipotle and Trader Joe’s — companies that union organizers have not in the past viewed as fertile to their efforts.
“This was kind of a different moment,” said Milkman of a period defined by a labor shortage, the pandemic and “a young labor force frustrated by their limited labor market options.”
US officials have seen a 53 percent jump in the number of union elections over the last year, according to the National Labor Relations Board.
But that increase takes place against the backdrop of a longtime decline in organized labor since the 1980s, with fewer than 10 percent of private-sector employees now unionized.
While union backers have won some high-profile election victories over the last year, in many cases, the successful votes have taken place at small establishments, such as an individual Starbucks cafe.
What’s more, “winning the election is actually the easy part,” said Cedric de Leon, a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
“The hard part is to negotiate the contract,” he said. “And there is nothing the government can really do to force the employers to negotiate in good faith.”
While two Starbucks cafes in Buffalo voted to unionize last December, the first meeting with management on the contract will take place only this month.
The outlook is even murkier at the Staten Island, New York warehouse that in April became the first Amazon site in the United States to unionize.
But Amazon is contesting the vote, alleging improprieties.
Commenting on a union election now taking place at an upstate New York warehouse, an Amazon spokesman said this week that the company will continue to fight the Staten Island election outcome because “we don’t believe it represents what the majority of our team wants.”
Culture of intimidation
Under the Biden administration, the NLRB has for its part cracked down on some anti-union conduct by big corporations, as with a complaint earlier this month against Apple after the company prevented the distribution of union fliers in a break room.
In August, a US judge ordered Starbucks to reinstate seven employees that the NLRB found were unlawfully fired by the coffee giant.
Such moves by companies represent an effort to instill in workers “a culture of fear and intimidation,” said de Leon, noting that support from President Joe Biden and other political leaders will not be enough to make real change.
But “250 Starbucks going out on a nationwide strike, that could be decisive,” he said.
The recent wave of union campaigns has come amid a tight labor market in a period of elevated consumer demand. A recession would alter some of those dynamics, although de Leon notes that previous economically weak periods such as the 1930s and 1970s have boosted unions.
Westlake said he is determined to hold companies like Starbucks to account.
“They are hoping that the public won’t care enough and that in two or three years, they will be able to fire all the union leaders and crush the union,” said Westlake, who has filed a complaint with the NLRB over his dismissal.
International
María Corina Machado kidnapped and forced to record videos before being released, says opposition
The Venezuela Command, the campaign team of opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, denounced the “kidnapping” and subsequent release of political leader María Corina Machado after she led a protest in Caracas on the eve of the Venezuelan presidential inauguration.
In a post on X, the opposition team stated that the former lawmaker was “intercepted and knocked off the motorcycle she was traveling on” after leading a rally in the Chacao area of the Venezuelan capital.
“Gunshots were fired during the incident. She was forcibly detained. During her kidnapping, she was forced to record several videos, and then she was released,” the statement added, which was made public nearly two hours after Machado’s party, Vente Venezuela, reported that she had been “violently intercepted.”
International
Governor Jenniffer González expresses solidarity with Venezuela’s struggling opposition
Puerto Rico’s Governor Jenniffer González expressed her sorrow over Venezuela’s political crisis on Thursday and voiced her support for Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, just one day before President Nicolás Maduro is set to take office following the controversial July elections.
“I think it is sad that the Venezuelan people have to suffer the consequences of a dictator who came to power by deceiving the people. I recognize Edmundo González for his leadership,” the governor stated during a press conference, coinciding with a day of protests by Venezuela’s opposition.
“The Venezuelan community has my full support, and, as we have done in the past, we will maintain that line of communication with whatever we can collaborate on,” assured the Puerto Rican head of government.
González Urrutia is currently in the Dominican Republic, the last announced stop on his American tour, where he was accompanied by Dominican President Luis Abinader and former Latin American presidents from the Spain and Americas Democratic Initiative (Grupo Idea).
International
Hundreds of venezuelan protesters demand ‘democratic change’ in Rome
Dozens of Venezuelans demonstrated in central Rome on Thursday to show their support for opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia and demand a “democratic change,” on the eve of the presidential inauguration that has deeply divided the country.
The protest took place in the Roman square of Largo Argentina and gathered several members of the Venezuelan diaspora and refugees, who sang their national anthem and displayed signs with the slogan “Glory to the brave people.”
Around 150 participants were present, according to one of the coordinators of the protest, Celeste Puerta from the ‘Aiuto Venezuela’ Civic Movement, who spoke to EFE.
Similar actions have been organized in other Italian cities, including Bologna, Florence, and Milan in the north.
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