Labor Notes 2022: Starbucks

The inspiration for this post comes from Left Voice (LV) with an article entitled Labor Notes 2022: Which Way Forward for the Movement?. It was written by a team of Left Voice journalists who attended the Labor Notes 2022 conference, held in Chicago June 17th-19th. 

The article led me to the Labor Notes webpage, and specifically the page reporting on the conference, which contains numerous videos of the proceedings. Most interesting to me was the panel discussion by people who organized the first Starbucks union--I listened to about an hour of the 95 minute video.

The LV journalists describe the conference this way:

It is in [today's] context that the biggest Labor Notes conference ever began today in Chicago. More than 4,000 workers, unionists, activists, labor journalists, and scholars are coming together to debate the strategies and tactics for taking the labor movement forward.

I'm don't think this is entirely accurate--at least based on the portions of the plenary sessions that I watched. Very little debate of "strategies and tactics" took place. Instead there was music, poetry, chanting and inspirational speeches. It had more the feeling of religious revival than any kind of serious discussion. Like a revival, the purpose was group solidarity, a sense of belonging, and a sense of purpose. In this it very much succeeded.

The breakout sessions were more substantive, but even there the word "debate" doesn't really fit. Sharing is a better descriptor. The Starbucks breakout (which is the only one I listened to at length) was show and tell from start to finish. The LV authors report that "...the socialist Left is banned from even handing out pamphlets or newspapers at the event, ..." suggests that debate was never on the agenda.

So here are my impressions of the Starbucks union organizers.

But for one older gentleman (who looked to be about 50, and who was the only person I saw wearing a wedding ring) the others were in their 20s or early 30s. One lady informed us of her pronoun, but the others all looked very normal and heterosexual. The youngest was a lady who started at Starbucks at age 17 and got fired--she is likely now about 20, or perhaps not even that old.

These people LOVE Starbucks. They refer to each other by the corporate lingo, i.e., as "partners." It seems like they buy the Starbucks' Mission and Values statements lock, stock and barrel. They like their customers, they're proud of where they work, and one bragged about the fancy drinks he'd learned to make. It's all very endearing.

Starbucks apparently has a serious management problem. The partners complained that their stores had cycled through a sequence of unsuccessful managers--as many as four or five in a year. This made it difficult for them to do their jobs, and more importantly, impossible to live the Starbucks Dream.

I have criticized unions for adding an extra layer of management to a business, and thereby adding to expenses without improving the customer's experience. But in this case that appears less true. These partners seem more interested in competent management than anything else, and if the company can't provide it they'll try to do it themselves. It won't work, but one can't blame them for trying.

If there's an enemy, it's nobody in the store, but district managers are frequently blamed, and probably with some justification.

I think these partners love Starbucks too much! They regard the company as a family, and as such it's supposed to take care of personal problems. For example, the very young lady mentioned above got fired because she had medical issues and also wanted time off to go to school. The company agreed to keep her on, but demanded that she demote herself and take a pay cut. For a company this is a very reasonable request. But it's not something that a family would insist upon--their favors are dispensed unconditionally. The woman's irresolvable dispute with Starbucks was that they refused to treat her like family member.

In a nutshell, these partners expect way too much from Starbucks. It's not just a workplace, but it's a way of life, a cause, a home, a place that's supposed to love you. To be fair, the Mission and Values seem to promise as much, but in fact there is no way a customer-driven company can meet those expectations from its employees.

It seems to me (and this is very speculative) that the union organizers have no personal life outside of Starbucks. They're not married (apart from the old guy), they have no children, and perhaps they're estranged from their parents. They're not members of a church or involved in other extracurricular that would give their lives meaning beyond the workplace.

The union is not being organized because of low salaries or poor working conditions (though too much overtime was a complaint). Instead the union is needed because the partners aren't getting enough love. They want to be loved and appreciated. And the messenger of that love should, by all rights, be the store manager--who because of the high turnover rate is effectively not there.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No not just for some, but for everyone

Failing that, let's all go on strike.

Which brings us back to the article in LV. They write (links omitted)

While labor unions and other organizations of working people have enormous power to fight both the exploitation and oppression of capitalism, the state is always seeking to co-opt, limit, and control that power. And the Democratic Party is one of the main weapons of the ruling class in this process. Unfortunately, both the traditional bureaucracy and the so-called independent unions have ties to the establishment or progressive wings of the Democratic Party. Our union leaders use our dues to campaign for and support Democratic politicians and almost never consult us, except in the most obligatory ways, when endorsing candidates. And those candidates, even when they claim to care about working people, always support U.S. capitalism and almost always endorse war and imperialism abroad.

In light of the video of Starbucks union organizers telling their story in their own words--this seems all fantastically irrelevant. The partners aren't worried about the "exploitation and oppression of capitalism." Quite the contrary--they want to work at Starbucks for a long time, and the last thing they want is for the stores to close and/or the company to go bankrupt. They're definitely not revolutionaries!

The partners don't care about the class nature of the Democratic Party. Most of them are probably Democrats themselves, and in any case it doesn't make a dime's worth of difference.

The LV authors fret about "imperialism." It's a meaningless term, and it has zero relevance to anything that happens at Starbucks. 

In a word, Left Voice lives on a completely different planet from the partners at Starbucks. The latter are sane and honest people who work hard and towards whom I have considerable sympathy. The former are a bunch of overpaid, petty bourgeois college professors.

PS--When I was their age I was a member of and 100% committed to the Socialist Workers Party. That was far less constructive than our partners' 100% reliance on Starbucks for their life's meaning. But I'd advise them (based on my experience) to get a life--that is, do something important that's not part of Starbucks. The best is to get married and have children--nobody will ever love you more than your children. And hopefully you'll eventually have some grandchildren. Failing that, join a church, or a bowling league, or a Friday night poker club. Do something that gives your life structure and meaning that doesn't depend on Starbucks.

Further Reading:

• Lost in the Amazon
• "A Program to Unify the Exploited and Oppressed"
• Unionizing Hotels