From the IWW Starbucks Workers Union
A Campus Campaign for Starbucks Baristas and Coffee Farmers
Friends:
This is a call for activists towards a campus campaign to achieve dignity on the job for Starbucks baristas and coffee farmers.
Despite its attempt to create a socially responsible image, Starbucks' failure to meaningfully embrace Fair Trade coffee has left coffee farmers and their children teetering on the brink of starvation in the Global South. A new documentary, Black Gold (www.blackgoldmovie.com), reveals in detail the pained existence of coffee farmers under the purchasing practices of Starbucks and other multinational corporations.
In Starbucks cafes, baristas are paid a poverty wage and the company insures a lower percentage of employees than Wal-Mart. Starbucks baristas are organizing a union (www.starbucksunion.org) with the Industrial Workers of the World for a better life on and off the job. In response, the company has waged a fierce and relentless anti-union campaign that tramples on workers' rights. In this union-busting operation unburdened by the law, Starbucks routinely retaliates against baristas for supporting the union. In addition, Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz recently broke the union of roasting plant employees.
