[Imc-newsroom] FYI-Starbucks and reprisals following Sep. 11 attacks

[Peter Miller]

>"Starbucks Coffee does not have a policy stating that partners (employees)
>who missed work specifically because of the WTC attacks will be terminated."

That's Starbucks' position on using absences related to the Sep. 11 attacks 
as an excuse to fire union activists.  The Starbucks spokesperson, Audrey 
Lincoff, sent me the statement via email on Friday.  I contacted her after 
receiving the article at the bottom of this message.

The article's author told me the following:

>You might be interested to know that the Washington State Labor Council
>(which posted this story to its email list of WA state union officers, staff
>and activists) says it has been barraged with calls & emails about this
>story, with people saying they are outraged and asking what they can do.
>
>One state Sen. contacted WSLC and told the lobbying director that she
>doubted the story's veracity. She said she could not believe that any
>company, no matter how anti-union, could be so "insensitive and stupid." At
>WSLC's request, I will be trying tomorrow to put this legislator in touch
>with IUOE and/or Don Goodson.
>
>One other note on the story I will be following up on -- Don has appealed
>the "occurences" being put in his personnel file. He can possibly get the
>marks removed if he proves, through documentary evidence (such as copies of
>flight manifests?) that he actually was stuck in Texas....


Sept. 20, 2001

Starbucks Wants Double-Tall Non-Union Roasting Plant
http://seattle.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=7093&group=webcast

By Mike Blain Seattle Independent Media Center

Seattle, Wash. -- Don Goodson was given three black marks in his personnel 
file last week. He had missed several scheduled shifts at his job at 
Starbuck’s roasting plant just south of Seattle. His excuse: He just 
couldn’ t make it in to work.

He says he called his Starbuck’s manager and explained why he would be 
unable to come in. When he returned to work he learned that he had been 
given three “occurrences.” Nine such marks in his personnel file and he 
could be fired.

The reason Goodson had to miss work? He was stranded in Austin, Texas, at 
the tail end of his scheduled vacation. The day was September 11, 2001. In 
Austin, as in the rest of the nation, all commercial air traffic had been 
suspended in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York City and 
Washington D.C.

Starbucks gives “occurrences” to workers (whom the company calls 
“partners”) for things such as tardiness, unexcused work absences, safety 
violations, and shoddy work. And, apparently, for being stranded in another 
city after a terrorist attack shuts down all the nation’s commercial 
airlines. Goodson was told by his Starbucks manager that his phone call 
from Texas and verbal explanation of his absence were not enough. The 
derogatory marks would be entered into his file.

“It astounds me that they can go about treating people this way and get 
away with it,” says Goodson.

When asked about the situation, Starbucks spokesperson Audry Linkoff said: 
“It is our policy not to comment on partner employment.”

  Workers Say Company Targets Union Supporters

Goodson is one of 18 mechanics and technicians employed at the Starbucks 
roasting facility, and a union supporter who has been active with the 
International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) in its efforts to 
organize the plant in Kent, Wash. Despite having voted in the union more 
than two years ago, and after numerous negotiating sessions with the 
company, union organizers say Starbucks has yet to put a comprehensive 
contract offer on the table. They say the company is more interested in 
harassing and disciplining union supporters, and waging a battle of 
attrition until the company can drive out most union supporters and 
re-stock the bargaining unit with enough anti-union workers to win a 
decertification vote.

Starbucks hired Goodson five months ago, on the recommendation of an 
anti-union worker who was organizing a union decertification vote. Workers 
say Starbucks management thought Goodson could play a role in helping to 
vote the union out. But after he learned of the union’s contract proposals 
regarding a retirement plan, he says he decided to support the union. After 
the unsuccessful decertification vote, Starbucks managers claimed that 
Goodson made derogatory remarks to a co-worker. Despite witness accounts to 
the contrary, he was punished by being switched to the graveyard shift.

Goodson and other union supporters at the Starbucks roasting plant say that 
company managers exercise broad discretionary powers when giving out 
occurrences, liberally doling out the black marks to union supporters for 
any real or unsubstantiated infractions, while turning a blind eye to the 
tardiness, absences, safety violations, and other occurrence-worthy acts of 
Starbucks workers who oppose the unionization effort.

Roasting plant workers say one union supporter was given two occurrences 
for allegedly leaving a washer on a machine. The worker said he did not do 
so, but, at Starbucks, if you are a union supporter it appears you are 
guilty until proven innocent.

Employees tell of another anti-union worker they claim has physically 
threatened at least three union supporters, both at and away from work. One 
union supporter ­ the shop steward ­ recently filed a police report, and 
then quit his job, because he feared for his safety after being confronted 
and threatened by the anti-union employee outside of work. Union supporters 
say they have reported the threats and intimidation to Starbucks 
management, but their complaints have basically fallen on deaf ears. 
Goodson says Starbucks managers told the union supporters that they had 
“brought on” the confrontations.

“We just want an equitable deal we can all live with, and some standards 
that we all have to follow,” said Goodson earlier this week, standing on 
the sidewalk in front of Starbuck’s corporate headquarters in South 
Seattle. Goodson was part of a group of about 25 union members and 
supporters, who were holding picket signs and handing out literature to 
passersby calling on the company to negotiate a fair contract.

  Dry-Roasted, Bitter Blend

It was shortly after 10 pm on September 5, and James Gower had just begun 
his graveyard shift at the roasting facility in Kent. It was his first 
shift back at work after the Labor Day weekend, and after his August 
vacation with his wife and two children.

His Starbucks manager had just told him that he was being given a “first 
notification write-up” for a “no-show, no-call” absence because he had been 
scheduled to work on August 31 and did not show up.

Gower told the supervisor that he had been gone that day because it was the 
last day of his vacation. He explained how he had had requested the time 
off, submitted the proper paperwork, and had the time off approved before 
leaving on vacation. The manager told him that the company had lost his 
paperwork, and that he was going to be suspended for a day without pay.

He told his supervisor that he had copies of the documentation he had 
submitted requesting vacation time, and that he wanted a union 
representative present if they were going to be discussing any disciplinary 
action. The manager told him if that were the case, he needed to call the 
union rep (it was now about 10:30pm) and have someone come down right then. 
Gower said it was too late for that night, but that a union rep could come 
in first thing in the morning. The manager told him that the suspension stood.

“I was punished for standing up for myself,” says Gower.

A union rep did later meet with Starbucks, and Gower eventually got the 
back pay he had been docked. But he says this was just one of several times 
in which he has been singled out for harassment or discipline because he is 
a union supporter. He points out that he had worked on the day shift for 
three years, and was abruptly switched to the graveyard shift because of 
his union activities.

“We are tired of them changing the rules every time we turn around,” adds 
Gower, “depending on the person or the situation.”

The Operating Engineers union has filed local, state and federal charges of 
intimidation, coercion, discrimination, health and safety violations and 
physical assault related to various incidents at the Starbucks roasting 
plant in Kent.

  Extra Foam, Hold the Contract

Operating Engineers organizer Rene Jankiewicz says the union was holding 
the rally and picket in front of company headquarters not only to educate 
the public about the contract campaign, but to also remember those who lost 
their lives in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and to support all those 
who lost co-workers and families. She drew links between the call to 
protect and cherish the freedoms we enjoy in the United States, and the 
organizing drive. “The right to organize a union,” says Jankiewicz, “is one 
of the fundamental rights we are trying to protect.”

In its contract proposals, the union’s requests include a standardized wage 
scale, improved medical benefits, promotion based upon experience and 
demonstrable skill, and retirement benefits. The company has proposed 
granting a retirement benefit, but it would be in exchange for a wage 
freeze, no improvement in health benefit costs, and the revocation of some 
company stock benefits already in place.

In fact, according to union supporters, Starbucks has awarded at least one 
of the benefits the union is requesting ­ an increase in the company share 
of workers’ medical premiums from 75 percent to 90 percent ­ to all 
270-plus non-union employees working in distribution and packing jobs, but 
not to the workers in the roasting facility. That is, the company raised 
the health benefits of all its Kent facility workers, except those in the 
unit that had voted for the union.

Starbucks spokesperson Linkoff would not address any specific questions 
about the union organizing campaign or contract negotiations. Instead, she 
provided the following company statement, titled “Media Statement on Kent 
Roasting Plant Union Activities,” which was issued on Sept. 8, 2001:

“Starbucks fully respects workers’ rights and can assure you that we are 
doing everything possible to negotiate a fair contract for the mechanics 
and technicians at our Kent Roasting Plant.”

Gower says such platitudes ring hollow based upon the company’s behavior 
thus far during negotiations. “They say they are trying to give us a 
contract, and then in their next proposal they go back and change things we 
already agreed upon.”

Peter Miller, co-host
The Illinois Labor Hour, Saturdays 11 a.m. - noon
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