The New York Times
The Nation
Latte Laborers Take on a Latte-Liberal Business
| |
ON March 30, the National Labor Relations Board’s New York office delivered a stinging accusation against one of the city’s — and the nation’s — most popular retail outlets. The labor board charged that Starbucks, the ubiquitous coffee chain, committed 30 violations of law in the process of trying to ward off union activity at four Manhattan outlets.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This may be the latest salvo in a new kind of labor battle: union workers versus corporate do-gooders.
The allegations that the company fired employees who were supportive of unionization and threatened to fire others are more reminiscent of 1930s-era industrial management than of the carefully groomed culture of a company that wears its conscience on its recyclable coffee-cup sleeves.
“The N.L.R.B.’s complaint illustrates that this is a company with a profound disrespect for workers’ rights,” said Daniel Gross (no relation), a union organizer who dished out frappuccinos and mocha lattes at Starbucks before being fired last August.
Mr. Gross and other union organizers are pushing Starbucks for higher wages and more hours, asserting that the $8.75 an hour that some Manhattan coffee clerks, or baristas, earn is too little. They also want the company to guarantee a minimum of 25 or 30 hours of work a week for many of its employees.
Starbucks strongly denies the charges, and says it will fight them in court. But Starbucks hasn’t suffered anything like the fate that has befallen Wal-Mart, another national chain known for its opposition to unions. While Wal-Mart has been rebuffed in its efforts to enter the New York City market, Starbucks doesn’t seem in danger of becoming a pariah.
Judging by the lines at Starbucks stores in Manhattan, one of the most progressive and union-friendly towns in the country, the accusations of union-busting and poor pay may not matter a lot. New Yorkers will probably continue to queue up in the thousands for the privilege of shelling out $4 or so for a caffeine injection. (There are more than 200 Starbucks outlets in the five boroughs.)
Activists are asking consumers to sign petitions and send e-mail messages protesting Starbucks’ practices. But they may have a hard time matching the success of the campaign against Wal-Mart.
One could chalk it up to the nature of the product Starbucks peddles. Many customers feel they simply can’t get their day started without a caffeine-laden beverage. But some powerful, far-reaching trends — like consumers’ viewing their spending choices as political expression — may also help explain why a company can maintain its assiduously polished progressive reputation while also bitterly fighting unions.
Do-goodism is an important component of Starbucks’ brand appeal. Starbucks is regarded as one of the most progressive members of the Fortune 500. It provides health care benefits and stock options to many part-time employees. It says it is committed to paying coffee growers in impoverished companies above-market prices for the beans. And its chief executive, Howard Schultz, called for universal health care coverage long before it became popular for corporate chieftains to do so.
“People prefer to do business with and work for socially conscious companies,” writes Joseph A. Michelli, author of “The Starbucks Experience.”
The same holds true at Whole Foods. Like Starbucks, the organic foods supermarket maintains what it calls socially responsible sourcing guidelines and supports alternative energy. (In 2006, Whole Foods made what it says was the biggest corporate purchase of green power ever.)
Again, like Starbucks, it has a chief executive, John Mackey, who is hostile to organized labor. In 2003, he told Fortune magazine that unions are “highly unethical and self-interested.” And, like Starbucks, Whole Foods suffers no apparent consumer sanction as a result of its position. Sales rose 12 percent in the first quarter.
Why? One explanation, of course, is that with each passing year, unions occupy a smaller space in our culture. In 2006, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a mere 12 percent of employed wage and salary workers were members of unions, down from 20.1 percent in 1983. In 2006, only 7.4 percent of private-sector employees were union members. As a result, very few of the people who pop into Starbucks each day for a jolt of energy are members of unions themselves, or are related to union members.
A change in the nature of political activism may also explain any possible disconnect. Activism is increasingly taking the form of consumption. “People are interested in doing a little bit better by the planet while they’re shopping,” said Mark Whitaker, the former Newsweek editor who is publishing Sprig, a new Web site for environmentally conscious consumers.
To register their concern about global warming, people can petition their government. Or they can pay above-market prices for reliable, prestigious products that reduce emissions and save energy: a Prius instead of an S.U.V.; compact fluorescent light bulbs instead of incandescent bulbs; wind energy instead of coal-fired electricity.
By the same token, many people are willing to pay a premium for Starbucks coffee and Whole Foods vegetables in part because they swear by the products, and in part because the companies trumpet their “good corporate citizen credentials.” Whether the associates and team members who sell them $4 coffees and $7-per-pound heirloom tomatoes agree with that assessment may not matter.
No comments:
Post a Comment