New Orleans The headlines said that 1000 Starbucks workers were on strike on the company’s annual “red cup” holiday special. The strike was indefinite, the union said, and was happening in 65 stores across 40 states. In New Orleans, nurses went on strike for the 5th time for 3 days at the UMC hospital, also seeking their first contract.
The first Starbucks stores were organized four years ago in Buffalo. More than 400 stores have now voted for unionization with SEIU’s Workers United. Over Mardi Gras, I had happened to run into the chief negotiator for the union in New Orleans. He was optimistic at the time. There had seemed to be a thawing. Subsequently, a new Starbucks CEO has taken over and bargaining reportedly has been sparse and at a standstill.
The company spokesperson’s statement was simple and straightforward. They gave the union credit for organizing 4% of the stores, based on the simple math of 400 stores out of 10,000, and claimed the company was working to keep all stores open. Workers were asking customers to boycott. The Guardian’s sympathetic report from Brooklyn seemed to indicate stores there were only half-full.
The nurses with National Nurses United (NNU) faced blowback from the hospital as well. Spokespeople for the employer claimed many were crossing the line in the strike and the cost of the 5th strike was hardly 10% of what the first one had been. The union has been working to win a contract for almost two years at this point. Reports indicated that of the 600 in the unit, 100 were on the line.
These causes are righteous without a doubt. In both cases, winning contracts would set precedents in local workforces and industry. Strikes are always the nuclear option for unions, but what happens when they don’t work, either initially or through repetition? What’s a union to do? It’s a classic tactical and strategic problem. Usually, you would look for some leverage. Winning public support would be central. What happens if you have exhausted those alternatives and the pressure isn’t working?
Without knowing all of the insider details, it’s clear that wages are the sticking point in both situations, even though there are other issues as well. In both cases, the unions have to know they may represent the units where they are certified and won elections, but they are bargaining for the whole enterprise in addition to what they’ve organized.
At what point do unions agree to a contract in order to get in the door and hope to improve wages and conditions over time? At what point have unions gotten workers so committed to the numbers that there is no going back except in defeat?
These are all an organizer’s nightmare. I once bridled at an organizing director who had given way certain hospitals in our local union’s jurisdiction. When I complained, he told me that he had done me a favor. How’s that, I asked? He said, if I had stumbled into winning an election at one of this conglomerate’s hospitals, I might spend years trying to get a contract and never succeed, so he was saving me the time in advance. Looking at this organizing puzzle for these two unions, it hurts me to say that he might have had a point.