Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Starbucks Workers United and their continued efforts locally and nationally has caught the attention of English musician and activist Billy Bragg, who stood outside the first unionized store on the picket line in Buffalo Wednesday afternoon.
Michelle Eisen, an organizing member of the union says that the Elmwood Avenue baristas have been picketing since Thursday in an attempt to bring forth issues regarding unfair disciplinary practices, inconsistent management and firings of 14 union leaders recently just in Western New York alone as retaliation of unionizing.
"The things that folks have been disciplined for at my store, in particular, just in the last week have been things that a little over a year ago would have been a simple conversation, possibly between a supervisor and a worker. It would not have resulted in a single disciplinary write up, let alone what we were seeing people being written for, which is things like putting the sticker in the wrong place on a cup, or an order sticker that comes through. I mean, someone's getting a disciplinary write up that would eventually lead to a termination. That's how that works."
Eisen suspects that Starbucks' actions are since all the store workers are union workers. Starbucks can't get rid of the union, but they can attempt to fire or write up the workers who are for it as an attempt to dissuade their voices.
Union organizers fired includes the recent termination of a barista at the Transit Commons store, Michael Sanabria, who told the managers who couldn't work a day because he wanted to attend his grandmother's funeral and was fired as a result.
"It's baffling to me that they would even want that narrative out there because there's no other reason that this employee was terminated other than not being able to come to work because his grandmother passed away. It's really sickening, that a company would force you to choose between attending a loved one's funeral and covering your shift," Eisen says.
Crowds quickly gathered and soon there were about 300 people gathered on Elmwood to hear Bragg performing songs including, "Which Side Are You On?" and "Solidarity Forever" as well as other union-related tunes. Eisen said that Billy reached out to them to perform after hearing about the efforts.
Bragg's music career has spanned over three decades and his activism and support for movements like unions are often reflected in his lyrics.
Bragg opens, "I've been doing this for a while in my country and here in the US, you see a new generation coming through whose values might be articulate in a different way from the less ideological way we did it in the miner strike in England, but it's still really, really powerful stuff. So I'm really, really proud to be here. If you're part of this new generation, then it really to me, it really is impressive."
In response to the Elmwood strike, Starbucks has taken their retaliation a step further and is now targeting customers as well. Even though the Elmwood store is closed, for two days now management has failed to turn-off mobile orders, meaning that customers are placing and paying for drinks that they will not be able to pick-up.
"Sunday morning, I woke up and got down here to picket and the mobile order system was turned on. This meant that customers were able to order and pay for their items and then when they showed up, the store was closed, there was no one in there to make these items. Then they were frustrated. and in turn took that out on the workers who were standing outside picketing. It was the only time I think, in this process that I've actually been fearful for my safety and the safety of my co-workers," said Eisen.
Eisen says that her continued efforts and hundreds of unionized stores will get Starbucks to negotiate a deal sooner rather than later, "I'm incredibly confident because we get stronger every day. We are organizing more stores across the country every day. We are now 250+ stores strong. That encompasses over 6500 unionized Starbucks workers, that's in less than a year. So this campaign is just continuing to build momentum."