November 13--baristas at many Starbucks coffee shops seeking a union contract went on strike. A picket line was set outside a Brooklyn location that 200-250 neighborhood people, strikers and members of other unions joined to call on people to not fill their caffeine needs at any Starbucks shops. “No Contract, No Coffee,” was one chant that rang out at the busy shopping area. Starbucks workers are taking a bold step against their greedy bosses who engorge themselves with the labor they are now withholding. But their fight needs to link up with the greater working class as a whole to smash all bosses and build a communist world, something no contract can provide.
The Red Cup rebellion!
Calling it a “red cup rebellion,” the baristas are seeking an end to Starbucks’ long history of union busting and comes after six months of Starbucks refusing to offer new proposals to address workers’ demands for better staffing, higher pay, and the resolution of hundreds of unfair labor practices.
This is an important time of year for Starbucks. They make festive red cups that are reusable and given with their drinks. It’s these red cups that are referred to in the cry of “Red Cup Rebellion.”
The Starbucks United Union is made up of 11,000 baristas at over 550 active stores. They are prepared to make this the largest and longest strike in company history. One teacher in the NYC school system interviewed made it to the picket from his school in another borough, saying “being a teacher, I know so many of my students’ parents and guardians work food service jobs like Starbucks. When parents are forced to work multiple jobs that don’t pay a fair wage, it has an obvious trickle down effect. I have seen many instances of students leaving early or coming to school late because they have to meet familial duties their parents don’t have time to do.Unfair wages and the insecurity that comes with it doesn’t just hurt workers, it affects our young people’s education too.”
Fightback is growing
The strike has now escalated to 95 stores in 65 cities. It is an open ended action with no set end date. The first night in Brooklyn, several speakers addressed the problem of affordability and low wages for an expanding number of jobs throughout the country.
Probably the best speech was given by a three year employee of Starbucks who recently moved to NYC from a store in Durham, North Carolina. She connected the problems of Starbucks and other workers to capitalism. She said her shop in Durham “didn’t have fair work weeks, didn’t have predictable schedules, didn’t even have requirements for employers to give five people breaks, no matter how many hours they worked.”
She went on to explain that the only reason there are some work protections here is that fast food and retail workers in NYC organized and fought for them. Speaking for many of the strikers and their supporters that night, she went on to say “it ultimately comes down to a question of power - we live in a time of unprecedented consolidation of power in the hands of the corporate elite that owns and controls every aspect of our lives.”
Lastly she said, “Every action, whether it’s a union vote, a walkout, is an act of rebellion against an unjust and unfair exploitative system, the capitalist system… It’s about time we tap into our collective power and win. Not just at Starbucks but everywhere.”
Baristas need communism
The evening ended with someone at the microphone singing an old Progressive Labor Party (PLP) song from the 1970’s record released back then, “Power to the workers, power to the working class,” and everyone, all 200 or so still there sang along. Many of both the picketers and supporters seem to agree that the red cup rebellion needed to turn into a red revolution.
Since then, the strike has expanded, and striking Starbucks workers upped the ante on November 19 when they led a large protest in York, Pennsylvania at a distribution center for coffee, the largest in the Northeast. They protested and blockaded the site along with their allies. The strike has expanded. But the strikers need to expand the anti-capitalist thinking best represented by the NYC Starbucks worker on the first night of the strike.
But how? The Progressive Labor Party sees the importance of the increasing militancy within the working class. This is reflected in the wave of resistance to ICE, in the resistance to the National Guard being sent to cities to fight “crime.” A wave of resistance to rising fascism was shown by seven million marchers on No Kings Day. Some say the resistance is against President Donald Trump, but many of his actions were preceded by a wave of attacks on immigrants and students on campuses while the Democrats were in the White House. Throughout the world the ruling classes in many countries are joining in an arms race rather than meeting the needs of working people.
The economic competition between China and the U.S. are all leading to an increased danger of war. The word in the street that one million voters in NYC repeat is “change.” The Progressive Labor Party sees the only way out of the morass of capitalism is the fight for an egalitarian system called communism that puts the working class in the driver’s seat in every factory, town, city and community here in the United States and internationally. Only revolution can make that happen. Revolution can only happen if millions of people take up the fight throughout the world. It’s for that reason we are organizing an international party with one goal, power to the workers! Join a Progressive Labor Party club and bring that closer to fruition.