Workers at a combined Starbucks and Amazon store in Times Square filed a petition for union recognition last Friday, saying they’re being required to do two jobs for the pay of one.
This is the first petition filed at a Starbucks-Amazon combination store – the two companies opened their first joint venture in late 2021 in upper-Midtown Manhattan.
Both companies are also separately experiencing unprecedented labour action.
There are over 250 unionised Starbucks locations, seven of which are in New York City.
Amazon warehouses, too, have been seeing efforts toward unionisation, though only one in Staten Island has been successful so far.
According to a spokesperson for Starbucks Workers United, the union which has successfully organised the seven other cafes in downtown Manhattan, the Times Square location has a high turnover, and some workers say they were transferred there from other Starbucks locations involuntarily.
The stores feature Amazon Go’s famous ‘Just Walk Out’ technology, meaning that there are no cashiers – customers just scan their phones, pick out what they want, and leave.
The Starbucks counter is for mobile pick-up only, and there is a lounge area with seating for customers to eat or work.
Because of its convenient location on the ground floor of the New York Times building, it has a high volume of customers.
Workers say they’re required to fulfil the responsibilities of both a Starbucks employee and an Amazon Go employee – but only for the pay of one.
‘We’re unionising at this Starbucks because we are doing Amazon work for Starbucks pay and we’re not given the proper resources to manage a store of this type in such a high volume area,’ said one worker, who has been at the location for over a year and a half.
‘We have partners that were coerced into working at this store using intimidation and miscommunication and not given any proper benefits when transferred here.’
Both Starbucks and Amazon are well-known for their anti-union corporate stances.
In Chelsea, just 25 blocks away, workers at the New York City Reserve Roastery – Starbucks’ flagship store – are entering a fourth day of their strike protesting against alleged bed bug sightings and black mould.
The Roastery unionised in April, but has still not successfully begun to negotiate a contract.
Starbucks and Amazon union organisers held a joint protest on Labor Day demanding recognition from their companies.
They marched from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s residence in Greenwich Village all the way to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s luxury penthouse on Fifth Avenue.
Starbucks and Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, staff at the Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) in Ohio on October 27 voted overwhelmingly to unionise as the Columbus Museum of Art Workers United (CMAWU) under the aegis of AFSCME Ohio Council 8, the local branch of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.
The vote comes less than two months after employees announced their intention to form a union.
The staff at CMA join their compatriots at museums across the United States who have moved to unionise in recent years, among them Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Brooklyn Museum, Dia Art Foundation, New Museum, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, all in New York; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
‘It’s a great day, and we are excited to take the next step in this journey with our CMA union Family,’ said CMAWU member Dani Rand, who works in the museum’s special events department, in a statement.
‘We look forward to working with our management and administration to make our workplace more equitable, while continuing to maintain the flagship cultural institution CMA has always been.’
Among the issues staff earlier cited as spurring their push to unionise earlier this year were budget cuts and staffing reductions.
The money-saving measures, which were similar to those taken by museums around the world in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, resulted in heavier workloads for remaining employees, many of whom additionally faced job precarity and the prospect of being forced to return to in-person work before vaccines became widely available.
In a press release, the newly formed union praised local politicians for their assistance with the unionisation drive and thanked the community for their support.
‘It’s been an overwhelmingly positive experience to be part of our union campaign, and I know it’s because the Columbus Museum of Art is an important part of this city’s community,’ said CWAMU member and visitor services staffer RG Barton in a statement.
‘I built really strong relationships not just with my co-workers but also the community who have stood with us throughout this process.
‘We hope they will continue to stand with us as we begin negotiating our contract.’
Meanwhile, union workers at the timber company Weyerhaeuser have settled their strike and could be back on the job as early as next week in Oregon and Washington.
More than 1,000 employees took to the picket lines in 14 locations across Washington state and Oregon over low wage increases, increased health premiums and a cut in vacation time for 46 days because of sticking points over health care costs in union negotiations.
Alfred Hendricks, a Weyerhaeuser electrician among hundreds of Longview, Washington, said they have been striking outside the facility day and night since September 13.
But, despite a record-breaking year of profits, Weyerhaeuser still hasn’t negotiated a contract with its unionised employees, who range from sawmill workers and log yard scalers to mechanical loggers and log truck drivers — all of whom have been working under expired contracts since May 31.
‘Meanwhile, they’re distributing millions of dollars in dividends to their shareholders,’ said Hendricks, who also noted Weyerhaeuser no longer gives its employees shares of the company.
- THE US Federal Reserve is pegged to make a fourth straight steep hike in the key interest rate this week as it battles surging costs, with its aggressive stance fuelling expectations of a recession.
American households have been squeezed by soaring consumer prices, propelling economic issues to the top spot among voter concerns in upcoming midterm elections. Fed officials walk a tightrope to try and rein in prices while avoiding a downturn.
To raise borrowing costs and cool demand, the US central bank has already cranked up the benchmark lending rate five times this year, including three straight 0.75 percentage point raises.
But with persistently high inflation and a tight labour market supporting wages and spending, analysts say another 0.75 point hike is almost certain at the central bankers’ next policy meeting.
The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) starts its two-day policy meeting today (Tuesday) and all eyes are on signals that it may be ready to slow its campaign in the months ahead.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has made it clear that there is no ‘painless way’ to cool the economy and avoid a repeat of the last time US inflation got out of control in the 1970s and early 1980s.
‘The Fed’s actions have rippled through the economy, with mortgage rates hitting their highest in decades recently and home sales sliding.
The United States has officially ended its economic recession, but a ‘double-dip’ recession is expected to be around the corner.
The central bank’s benchmark rate is currently at a target range of three per cent to 3.25 per cent.
Even with gas prices coming down, consumer prices are not letting up – with a core measure that strips out the volatile food and energy segments surging to a 40-year high in September.
That fear has driven the Fed to front-load its rate hikes rather than pursue the more customary course of small, gradual steps over a longer period.
New data shows that the US economy ended its recession last quarter, but there is widespread admission across the mainstream media that the official numbers don’t show the true picture of the depth of the economic difficulties.
At 2.6% in the third quarter it was the first sign of GDP growth in 2022. However, if the vast increase in the sales of arms and gas to Europe are excluded, then the US economy would have shrunk 0.2%, thus remaining in recession.
So what’s truly keeping the US economy afloat is the lack of a diplomatic solution to the unrest in Ukraine.
Many point to non-governmental data for the true state of the economy: A new survey shows that a stunning 63% of Americans are living paycheque to paycheque.
With inflation at levels unseen in nearly four decades, credit debt at levels unseen in three decades and unemployment expected to soar this winter, most economists are predicting a return to recession, known as a ‘double-dip recession’.
The lack of broad economic stability is the primary reason that the Democratic Party is polling to lose control of Congress in the midterm elections on November 8th.
That would create a divided government and make implementing economic solutions at the federal level even harder. That is fuelling even more pessimism about the future, which will then create even more Americans who are just one paycheque from disaster.
