Socialist NYC mayor-elect calls for Starbucks boycott during 'Red Cup Rebellion'

Socialist NYC mayor-elect calls for Starbucks boycott during 'Red Cup Rebellion' We got some big labor news this morning. And, oh, joining us to make an important announcement is Michelle Eisen. She’s the national spokesperson for Starbucks Workers United.

She’s also been at the Buffalo store for over 15 years. Right, Michelle? Yes, I was at the Buffalo location, the first to organize in the U.S. in 2021. Amazing. Okay,

Welcome to the End Show, why don’t you tell the people what you guys are doing? So this morning, Starbucks baristas are out on our biggest unfair labor strike ever on the campaign trail today.

More than 1,000 baristas are currently in front of their stores, picketing, protesting the company’s refusal to budge and returning to the bargaining table with new proposals

that meet our remaining demands and expose their evil union. A little bit about, you know, it's been a few years. Discovering the origins of the Starbucksunionization movement here.

What's life been like with the company? You know, conceding to certain demands. Has the union been busted? What's the relationship with management like right now? Okay. Okay, it's been a wild ride.

It's been four years. You're right. It's been a long time. I'm unfortunate that I've been informed that the company has spent most of that time inciting the union, violating U.S. labor law left and right.

They're the most prolific violators of U.S. labor law in modern history. That's not debatable. Um they've been found guilty over 400 times.

Um ALJ judges across the country have found them guilty of violating workers' rights over 400 times. There are over 700 pending unfair labor practice charges that have yet to be dismissed.

And this year alone, they've committed 125 more. So, in 2024, the company contacted the union and said, “Hey, our fight is over. We want to reach an agreement.

We’re promising to have a fair contract with our unionized workforce by the end of 2024, as well as resolve outstanding legal issues.” They’ve failed to do either of those things

and instead have continued to fight workers everywhere and violate American labor law, and workers are absolutely fed up with it. Oh, there are some demands left after nine months of bargaining back in 2024

that the company has refused to give us any real proposals or solutions on. And they’re higher take-home pay, like making sure their workers can pay their bills, fixing staffing issues in our stores,

which are just cruel. If you've been to Starbucks anytime recently, you've seen stores that are very understaffed,

and meanwhile, at the same time, baristas aren't being paid the hours they need to pay the bill. And then continuing to violate the law and refusing to address any of these unfair labor practices

that are just hanging over their heads and really hurting the brand's reputation, hurting their workers,And the workers are ready to move accordingly. We set a time for the company. We set that we started the strike authorization vote a few weeks ago.

We said you have to come back with some resolutions by November 13th, which is Red Cup Day. This is a great day for the company. Um, here are our demands that have been very clear to you for the last 6 months

And they haven't come back. So, the workers are inactive right now and they're going to stay out there and they're going to get bigger and stronger until the company comes back. Oh, Michelle, how many stores have you unionized at this point?

We've won over 650 locations in 45 states and DC. Oh, but unfortunately, the company announced the store closures about a month ago. Mso currently has 550 union locations open

READ MORE YOUTUBE NEWS: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SSDmfLyV8yM

And that's over 11,000 Starbucks baristas who are unionized. And how are unionized stores and baristas treated compared to ununized? Quite honestly,

Every Starbucks barista is suffering right now. Yes. Um, all the policies that have been implemented under Brian Nickel have only made the workers’ jobs harder and they haven’t improved the environment in those stores.

They haven’t improved the customer experience at all, which is why we’ve actually only seen an increase in our organizing under Brian Nickel.

Um, we’ve organized over 160 stores, I think, since he took over in that role. So, the non-union or union workers are recognizing

that this company is not ready to step up and take care of them. They’re ready to invest millions of dollars in other places

like the $96 million severance package that Brian Nickel received for just his first four months with the company. They spent $81 million on a 4-day managers' conference in Vegasthis past June.

So, we know the company has money. Obviously they're not worried about money. But unfortunately, they're not investing in their hourly workforce.

The people who bring in that revenue, the people who build those relationships with customers that make them come back to those stores and spend money every single day.

They're just not putting that money in the right place and the unionized workers are struggling very hard to make this business better. As we want the company to be successful. We want the company to be successful.

It would be detrimental for us not to do that. Um, and we've presented the company with a lot of options to help address those issues. Wouldn’t it be nice

to walk into a Starbucks for your Peppermint Mocha this holiday season and not have to wait 40 minutes, watch two or three baristas work or six people run around

because they haven’t put in enough effort to hide the business that the store is doing. When we see or I’ve heard a store manager say something like, “Oh, well, you know,

people just don’t want to work.” There are baristas who are dying to work hours who are begging for a schedule

so they can pay their bills, so they can qualify for these amazing benefits that the company says they offer.Um, and they're just not scheduling. So, it's not a case of not having enough workers.

It's a case of not scheduling enough of those workers to meet the needs of the business and to make sure they're able to qualify for benefits and pay their bills.

Many Starbucks baristas rely on SNAP and Medicaid. Why does a multi-billion dollar corporation have employees who are subsidized by the government? It's not

that just doesn't count. Yeah, right. Great point. Great point. And so we are. We're just waiting. The baristas are tired. It's going to get bigger.

This will be the biggest and longest strike in the company's history if the company doesn't come back to meet the demands. And we're asking our allies to stand with us.

For every barista who is on the picket line, a dozen allies have pledged not to cross the picket line and not to shop at Starbucks while the workers are on strike.

That's the equivalent of thousands of people not spending their money at Starbucks this holiday season. So that's a very clear message and we're ready. We're ready. We've been ready for months.

We've been ready for years to get this deal done. We know it can be done in less than a day's sales. It would cost this company less than a day's notice to get a multi-year contract with the union.

Even less than they paid Brian Nickel millions of dollars for his first four months of employment. Even less than what they spent on that 4-day managers' conference in Vegas,

which was over $80 million. Um, Michelle, tell us a little bit about the allies who have pledged to stand with you in solidarity. And then finally, what are you asking the public to do?

So we had a sign on the letter that came from a bunch of different organizations. I'm sure the total number was in the millions, of which they represented tens of millions of people.

And they all said, you know, the people we represent are pledging not to cross the picket line if workers have to go on an unfair labor strike.

And here we are. Um, and we're not spending our money at Starbucks. We're not going to buy gift cards for our kids' teachers. We're not going to get our peppermint mochas,

you know, when we're shopping for the holidays. We're only going to stay away from Starbucks when workers are on strike.

Um, and so we have student activists in their colleges doing the same thing,

talking to their colleagues, um, talking to their administration about not having Starbucks products on their campuses. We have the global labor movement standing behind these workers.

Because, you know, we're all working class. Unless you're in the top 1%, you're a worker and you trust your employer to pay you fairly for your hard work, you know,

and so they just made a pledge not to cross a line and not to spend their money at Starbucks. And all we're asking is

that people keep it up. We have a site called nocontractnoccoffee.org. You can go there. You can get the latest information on amazing places.

Uh, you can sign our pledge not to cross the picket line and not to spend your money at Starbucks during the workers' strike.

And you can join us on the picket line. Um, workers are making sacrifices. It's the holiday season.We, you know, workers are sacrificing time with our families. They're sacrificing wages. They're potentially sacrificing,

you know, losing benefits of not going to work, being on strike to protest the company's failure to come back with new proposals that address these issues and to address these legal issues.

Um, and so say hello, if you see them on strike, join in for a little while, leave the doughnuts. Um, there's just always going to be more workers than CEOs in this country

And we have to stand together. So this is that moment and um this is this easy win and I think the company will finally see that this can be fixed. It can be fixed as soon as possible.

We could go back to tablets tomorrow. We could fix the problems. We could make the lives of workers better. We could make the experience better for the customers and overall it would make the company better overall.

Yes, that's right, Michelle. There is no contractcoffee.org website. I couldn't agree more with you about the importance of working people organizing.

I think the lack of that organization is one of the biggest things that's wrong with this country right now.