3
COURIER LIFE, APRIL 8-14, 2022
BY BEN BRACHFELD
Employees at the Starbucks
in Bath Beach’s
Ceasar’s Bay Shopping Center
will begin voting this
week on whether to become
the coffee giant’s first unionized
location in Brooklyn,
and Councilmember Justin
Brannan is warning CEO
Howard Schultz against
tall, grande, or venti interference
in workers’ right to
organize after various attempts
at union-busting in
the southern Brooklyn cafe.
Twenty-one employees
— “partners” per Starbucks
company lingo — at
the southern Brooklyn
Starbucks outlet will begin
voting Friday on whether
to unionize with Starbucks
Workers United, a Service
Employees International
Union affiliate that has,
so far, successfully organized
ten locations of the
ubiquitous Seattle-based
coffee shop this year after
first unionizing locations
in Buffalo, against a pervasive
and well-funded opposition
campaign from corporate
headquarters.
Workers at the Ceasar’s
Bay shop announced their
intention last month to become
one of the first three
Starbucks in New York City
to unionize, in concert with
the Astor Place location in
Greenwich Village and the
“Reserve Roastery” in the
Meatpacking District. Reserve
Roastery workers won
their union election last
week, while ballots have already
been sent out at Astor
Place. Across the country,
160 stores have filed petition
to unionize, and ten have
won their elections.
Ceasar’s Bay’s union
drive also comes in the
wake of one of the labor
movement’s biggest wins
in years: unionizing thousands
at Amazon’s Staten
Island fulfillment center.
Brannan, a former shop
steward at the American
Federation of Television
and Radio Artists, said in
a letter to Canarsie-native
Schultz – who recently returned
to the company
as interim CEO – that
Ceasar’s Bay employees
have already faced possible
retaliatory measures
at the hands of company
management over their efforts
to unionize, including
cuts to their working
hours, echoing the experiences
of workers at outlets
across America as Starbucks
aggressively seeks
to quell labor organizing
among its workforce.
“I’m sorry to say I am
deeply troubled by your company’s
response to unionizing
efforts in Ceasar’s Bay
thus far,” Brannan said in
the April 4 letter. “Several
members of the organizing
committee, a majority of
which are women of color,
have already filed unfair
labor practice charges …
because they’ve had their
hours cut since they started
organizing. To the outside
observer, these actions certainly
appear retaliatory.”
Ceasar’s Bay employees
say they have also been subjected
to anti-union “captive
audience meetings”
and one-on-chats anti-union
“chats,” a common tactic
pressuring them against
voting in favor of forming
a union, which if successful
will bargain for a contract
with Starbucks honchos.
Megan DiMotta, a union
organizer at the Ceasar’s
Bay store and 10-year veteran
of the company, said
Councilmember Justin Brannan (at podium) is urging Starbucks
honchos not to intervene in the Ceasar’s Bay unionization drive.
John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit
that she and another union
organizer have had their
hours cut by about 10 percent,
which the company justified
by onboarding new colleagues
the week they filed
with the National Labor Relations
Board. She said that
managers have also been
far more likely in recent
weeks to discipline workers
for minor infractions, and a
regional manager came to
the store soon after partners
filed cards to observe them
during the workday, which
workers took as a form of intimidation.
The company even
closed down the store early
several days in a row, Di-
Motta said, when Ceasar’s
Bay was short-staffed due
to workers testing positive
for COVID. DiMotta said
that typically, the company
would simply send partners
Brannan to S’bucks:
‘Keep your Venti Hands out of Ceasar’s Bay unionization’
Continued on page 18
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