On Monday, the Wisconsin AFL-CIO announced that workers at the McDill & Crossroads Starbucks location in Plover, Wisconsin, have called for union recognition from Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson and local management. A majority of workers at the Plover store have signed union authorization cards with Starbucks Workers United. The Plover drive joins a previous request for union recognition at the Oak Creek Starbucks, just south of Milwaukee. On Saturday, a crowd of over 50 workers, labor leaders, and community supporters gathered in the Wisconsin February cold in front of the Oak Creek Starbucks for a solidarity action. Carlos Ginard, Assistant Manager at Workers United in Chicago, explains why people were there.
Ginard explains what will come next.
Sydney Lebarron-Fahl has been working at the Oak Creek Starbucks for almost a year and is one of the organizers of the union drive, and addressed the crowd.
Hannah Fogarty, an Oak Creek Starbucks worker, tells why a union is necessary.
Jacob Flom, chair of the Young Workers Committee at the Milwaukee Area Labor Council and Vice President of AFSCME Local 526, the Milwaukee Public Museum Employees, describes the significance of this organizing drive.
Joe Stubbs is a worker and organizer at Colectivo Coffee, a chain with shops in Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison that recently organized with the IBEW. Stubbs explained why he was there for Starbucks workers on a cold Saturday morning.
That was Joe Stubbs, a Colectivo Coffee worker and member of IBEW in solidarity with the Starbucks Coffee national organizing drive. Worker-organizers at Starbucks stores across Wisconsin are expecting that the actions in Oak Creek and, now, Plover will spark organizing throughout the state.
Reporting Courtesy of Greg Geboski for Labor Radio
Image Courtesy of Greg Geboski
