More than 100 of the coffee shop’s locations have unionized, while just one Amazon warehouse has managed it
Isaiah Thomas, a pro-union worker at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, sees many reasons for the different pace – and said the biggest was the different size of the workplace. “There might be only 28 workers at a, but 6,000 at our Amazon warehouse. In terms of what the organizing committee has to do at Starbucks, it’s not a lot of people. They can keep a close-knit friendship. They can coordinate things closely.
As a union activist, Cochran helps advise Starbucks baristas in the Carolinas who want to unionize. “We can talk to somebody and a week and a half later, they’ve got enough cards signed and can go public,” Cochran said. “Small units allow for a very rapid pace. I could not imagine trying to do something like that to organize an Amazon warehouse. It could take months.”
John Logan, a labor studies professor at San Francisco State University, sees a big similarity: “Both companies are anti-union in their DNA.” He said it might be hard to replicate the union’s success in Staten Island, considering how large the workforce is in the Amazon warehouse. In contrast, he said, “Workers United [the Starbucks’ workers’ union] has developed this dynamic, self-sustaining model that might result in this coffee chain mostly organized.”one in Bessemer.
Logan said one important aspect of Starbucks culture had unwittingly helped the union win – Starbucks’ emphasis on teamwork and building a sense of community. That esprit de corps among baristas often fosters strong solidarity once a union drive begins. “The workers act almost as a bloc deciding: this is what we’re going to do,” Logan said. “That helps explain why the union has won elections overwhelmingly, time after time. A lot are [almost] unanimous or 12-1, 15-1, 19-3.
Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said: “Amazon and Starbucks have the same anti-union animus, but the resources that Amazon has spent have been really extraordinary. And then there’s the constant surveillance of people. In Bessemer, there were 1,100 cameras on site. The spigot never shuts off on spending money to fight unions.”
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