Op-Ed: The UNITE HERE International Union Should Keep Their Hands Off Local 2’s Pension Fund

October 4th, 2022
Copyright © 2022 by Marc Norton

I have been a proud member of UNITE HERE Local 2 in San Francisco since 1976, working at several hotel, restaurant, and food service jobs over the years, and now at the Giants’ ballpark.

Workers need strong unions to fight the bosses and corporate forces whose greed knows no bounds. Without Local 2, my life would have been much, much harder.

But today one of my worst Local 2 nightmares may be coming true.

The UNITE HERE International Union wants to “merge” Local 2’s pension fund into the massive Las Vegas pension fund.

Las Vegas, with more than 60,000 UNITE HERE members, is the home base of International Union President D. Taylor. Both Taylor and former President John Wilhelm are trustees of the Las Vegas pension fund.

The International Union also wants to merge the Seattle, Sacramento, San Mateo, and San Diego pension funds into the Las Vegas fund as part of this same deal.

The “merged” fund would be run by a “merged” Board of Trustees, with the International Union in the commanding position.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Local 2 representatives would be only one small voice among many. We would lose control of the size of our pensions and when we get them. We would also lose control of investment decisions and oversight of the fund. That would be the same for Seattle, Sacramento, San Mateo and San Diego workers.

Local 2 representatives would be only one small voice among many. We would lose control of the size of our pensions and when we get them. We would also lose control of investment decisions and oversight of the fund. That would be the same for Seattle, Sacramento, San Mateo and San Diego workers.

Local 2 workers have fought hard over the years to improve our pensions. After many strikes and actions, and after sacrificing many potential wage increases to put money into our pension fund, San Francisco hotel workers are currently entitled to a pension of $50 per month for every year of work.

We have also sacrificed to put money into our medical fund. We have an outstanding medical plan which includes full coverage for many of our retirees. These are accomplishments that the membership and our local officials can be proud of.

Pensions for Las Vegas workers are far less, according to the pension plan documents posted on the Las Vegas pension website. What incentive would the International Union and Las Vegas officials have to allow Local 2 workers’ pensions to outshine what they provide for Las Vegas workers?

Local 2 officials have bragged that the merged pension fund would control around $3.8 billion in assets. Our local fund has about $600 million. It does not take a mathematician to see that Local 2 would only be the tail on the dog.

LOCAL 2 OFFICIALS BACK MERGER

Sadly, our Local 2 officials are on board with this plan to merge away local control of our pension fund. Their fealty to the International Union seems to know no bounds.

Local 2 members have been told repeatedly in recent times that our pension fund is in good shape. Why fix something that isn’t broken? Why are Local 2 officials rushing to give up local control of our pension fund?

Local 2 members have been told repeatedly in recent times that our pension fund is in good shape. Why fix something that isn’t broken? Why are Local 2 officials rushing to give up local control of our pension fund?

Local 2 officials have admitted to working on this plan for at least the last six months, likely much longer, but only revealed it to members on August 26 in a cryptic announcement buried in a “newsletter” on the local’s little-used website. This announcement did not mention Las Vegas, but only unnamed “UNITE HERE western states” pension funds. Getting more information has been a process.

Our Local 2 officials have also been at pains to tell us that the decision will be made solely by the current pension fund trustees, that there will be no vote on the matter by Local 2 members, and the they will not even be consulting our Executive Board.

Our officials further claim that our pension benefits will be protected by some kind of complicated arrangement involving separate accounting of contributions from the different locals.

But regardless of what arrangement is made at the beginning, a new “merged” Board of Trustees could change the rules at any time.

The new “merged” Board of Trustees could even do further mergers with other UNITE HERE pension funds, without any need to consult the membership.

Regardless of what arrangement is made at the beginning, a new “merged” Board of Trustees could change the rules at any time.

The new “merged” Board of Trustees could even do further mergers with other UNITE HERE pension funds, without any need to consult the membership.

The basic pitch from our officials, as usual, is “Trust us.” But even if we trust them, this merger is forever. Who knows who will be in charge next year, five years from now, or down the road?

Right now if we have a problem with the administration of our pension fund, we know the Local 2 trustees (Mike Casey, Anand Singh, Tina Chen and Kim Wirshing) and how to get to them.

How would we even go about getting a hearing from the trustees from the International Union and from locals all over the western states? Good luck with that.

Our officials say there are laws that protect our current pension benefits. This is true. But the laws are far from foolproof. And laws can change. Just think Trump 2024, and be very afraid.

I have been personally warned by our officialdom that they will be very “mad” at me if I publicize this proposed pension merger outside my local. But bringing this scheme into the light of day is the only way to fight it, so I will just live with the consequences.

I don’t even know at this point if members of the other affected locals know anything about this proposed pension fund merger. I would love to hear from fellow workers in other UNITE HERE locals.

THE INTERNATIONAL UNION

Local 2 has long had a fraught relationship with the International Union. There is no way to do this subject justice in this one article, but here are some highlights.

When I first joined Local 2 in 1976, the International Union was run by President Edward T. Hanley, widely believed to be a creature of the Chicago mob. In 1978, Local 2 members voted out Hanley’s guy here in San Francisco, which led in short order to a trusteeship imposed by the International Union.

International Union Trustee Vincent Sirabella arrived talking about what wonderful things the International Union could do for us if we handed our pension fund over to them. Fortunately there was too much blowback from the membership about the trusteeship for that pension grab to be executed.

In 1980, over 6,000 Local 2 hotel workers went on strike for a month, the first such strike in decades. The strike ended with a controversial settlement after Hanley took over negotiations without any participation by the rank-and-file.

Later that year, Local 2 members voted to amend our bylaws to require that Business Agents be elected by the membership. Hanley vetoed that bylaw amendment.

By 1981 the net assets of the International Union had dropped during Hanley’s reign from $21 million to $12 million, despite a large increase in the number of paid “organizers.” Union membership was in decline.

There was a disastrous restaurant strike in San Francisco in 1984, and we lost nearly all of our restaurant contracts. The man on the scene for the International Union during this strike was D. Taylor.

The U.S. Senate held several hearings in the mid-1980s featuring testimony about Hanley’s connections to organized crime and the looting of numerous union and benefit funds.

In 1991 the Local 2 administration secretly mortgaged our Union Hall to the International Union, in clear violation of our bylaws, to pay off accumulated debts. Local 2’s President at the time, Sherri Chiesa, later ascended to the post of International Union Secretary-Treasurer.

In 1995 federal courts imposed a Federal Department of Justice “monitor” on the International Union. The feds used this “monitorship” to force the removal of a good number of allegedly mob-connected officials from the International Union and from various locals.

In 1996, Brother Jon Palewicz discovered the secret mortgage of our Union Hall to the International Union. When we informed the federal monitor of this fact, then Secretary-Treasurer Herman “Blackie” Leavitt was forced to turn the deed back over to Local 2. Leavitt claimed that the mortgage had been rescinded earlier, but “somehow, we neglected to file” the proper paperwork.

The monitorship did not end until 1998, when Hanley was forced to resign. The International Union General Executive Board chose John Wilhelm, a protege of Sirabella, to replace Hanley. Wilhelm famously said that “There is no organized crime problem… with respect to former President Hanley [and] current general officers.”

Hanley died in a car accident on a lonely country highway in Wisconsin in 2000.

Wilhelm retired as International Union President in 2012. The International Union General Executive Board selected D. Taylor as the new President.

Members of some International Unions, including the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers (UAW), directly elect their International Presidents on the basis of one worker, one vote. Not so with the UNITE HERE International Union. The top hierarchy picks one of their own, and their choice is later confirmed at their rigged International Conventions, leaving UNITE HERE members disenfranchised when it comes to control of the International Union.

The federal government purged the International Union of its upfront organized crime figures, but the Godfather style of control from the top remains solidly intact.

Today the “see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, say-no-evil” D. Taylor and John Wilhelm are still in charge, and are the moving forces behind the International Union’s move to take control of our Local 2 pension fund.

The federal government purged the International Union of its upfront organized crime figures, but the Godfather style of control from the top remains solidly intact.

Today the “see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, say-no-evil” D. Taylor and John Wilhelm are still in charge, and are the moving forces behind the International Union’s move to take control of our Local 2 pension fund.

THE BEAT GOES ON

Local 2 members overwhelmingly passed a bylaw amendment in 2021, requiring our officials to prosecute scabs after any strike. D. Taylor vetoed that bylaw amendment.

Earlier this year, under the presumed guidance of the International Union, Local 2 officials sold us on merging the San Francisco and East Bay locals into one union, telling us that bigger is better—the same line they are using to try to sell the pension fund merger.

Our officials also told us that the merger of the two locals would be the “first action” in our 2022 hotel contract campaign. Then they turned around and allowed the International Union to negotiate a nationwide hotel contract deal without any participation by the rank and file.

The new hotel contract supposedly protects housekeeping jobs, but with the unusual provision that any housekeeping staffing grievances that need to go to arbitration must first go through a “pre-arbitration conference” with the International Union President or his representative. You have to wonder what kind of deals might be made at such a “conference.”

The new hotel contract does next to nothing to bring back to work the many non-housekeeping hotel workers whose jobs have been eliminated or merged with other classifications during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing economic crisis, which has hit our industry very hard. The severance package that San Francisco hotel workers won in our 2018 strike seems to have gone up in smoke.

As part of the merger of the two locals, an under-the-radar bylaw amendment abolished regular, monthly membership meetings — the only meetings where workers from all the different workplaces and crafts in our union could come together.

As part of the merger of the two locals, an under-the-radar bylaw amendment abolished regular, monthly membership meetings — the only meetings where workers from all the different workplaces and crafts in our union could come together.

Instead, the Executive Board is supposed to set four membership meetings each year at times and places of its choosing, which they can amend “as necessary.”

Meanwhile, Local 2’s Executive Board continues to meet in secret. We can’t even get the minutes of its meetings in a timely fashion.

THE FUTURE OF OUR UNION

The struggle for democracy within Local 2 and our sister unions around the country has had many ups and downs over the years. Right now, it seems like it is mostly down.

I fear for the future of Local 2, and for the future of hotel, restaurant and food service workers around the country. We are facing multiple problems as a result of the pandemic and the ongoing economic crisis. We don’t need to add self-inflicted wounds.

Giving up local control of our pension funds is a disaster in waiting, and one more step away from the rank and file having a real democratic voice in the functioning of our union.

Local 2 officials should reverse course and walk away from this proposed pension fund merger, now.

Local 2 officials should reverse course and walk away from this proposed pension fund merger, now.

A shorter version of this article was originally published by Labor Notes on September 21, 2022. Marc Norton's website is at MarcNortonOnline. He can be reached at nortonsf@protonmail.com.

Op-Ed: Underjoyed About Joy Silk

The NLRB wants to change the rules around how unions can win legal recognition from employers. A union organizer explains why this doctrine won’t do much for workers.

By Alex Riccio

On April 11, 2022 Jennifer Abruzzo, the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), filed a brief stating her desire to revive a doctrine known as Joy Silk. This brief has led to an explosion of commentaries and reactions, with the mouthpieces of the employer class catastrophizing over the prospects of Joy Silk while liberals, and even some left-wing pundits, are celebrating the memo as if it signals the arrival of the new messiah, Jennifer Abruzzo, ready to smite all enemies of labor unions with her righteous brand of jurisprudence. To a degree I sympathize with those jubilant labor supporters, but I cannot muster the same excitement for Joy Silk, as I see it having minimal effect on restraining employers' pugnacious willingness to violate labor law.

Quickly, Joy Silk is a legal doctrine which requires employers to demonstrate a good faith doubt that a majority of their employees wish to form a union if said employees push for union recognition. Without producing such a credible doubt, the employer is expected to recognize their workers’ union. 

Right-wingers claim this doctrine will effectively require employers to grant automatic “card check” recognition to unions, while more measured labor law commentators have demonstrated that in fact the purpose of the doctrine is to discourage employers from violating labor law, and therefore the doctrine will lead to an increase in NLRB elections rather then an increase in card check recognition. 

Practically, then, what this means is Joy Silk is another mechanism for unions to file unfair labor practices (ULPs) against employers with the hope that most employers will simply allow workers to proceed to an NLRB election without interference. Here is where I’m underwhelmed. One, ULPs against employers rarely lead to anything of meaningful consequence. The NLRB can’t impose fines, and its overall enforcement mechanisms are quite minimal. Typically ULPs just result in a written notice being posted from the employer in a workplace, or back pay for a fired worker, or, if you’re lucky, a demand to bargain with a union, which employers can still stall out through legal means. 

Two, ULPs take forever and time is the greatest weapon of the boss. By the time a union “wins”, much of the support from workers has been eroded as they’ve been exhausted by the whole process. Where an industry is prone to high turnover, it’s likely that many of the union supporters no longer work at a site once a ULP has finally been settled. Joy Silk would be subject to the same long delays as any other NLRB process.  

Three, and this is probably my biggest reason for not jumping for joy, a Joy Silk framework has zero impact on large corporate employers, for instance a Starbucks or Amazon. If you could even muster enough authorization cards, and then somehow present those cards with a majority of employees to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt to the employer that workers want a union, who honestly believes such corporations will actually be compelled to follow labor law? A Starbucks is going to look at this doctrine, if it even has a chance of being revived, and come up with a thousand (likely credible) claims for doubting the workers want a union. Even if they’re not credible they’ll still take it to court and stall the whole process, and proceed to illegally bust the union while things are dragged on in the courts for years. Joy Silk won’t do anything to make big companies, the ones unions must take on, comply with the law or become allergic to ruthlessly fighting unions however they deem necessary. I’ll concede it could help with compelling small employers to follow the doctrine, but it’s simply not enough to take on small shops one at a time while getting our asses handed to us by the ruling class that employs the vast majority all the while.

Joy Silk, and for that matter the PRO Act, is just more tinkering around the edges of the real problems plaguing organized labor, which is crudely the fact that workers and employers have fundamentally opposing interests and are locked in a class war. I wouldn’t object to improvements in labor law, small and ineffectual as they may be, and don’t believe that all such reforms must be abandoned outright. But unions placing a primacy on legal strategies as a means to increasing union power is a major factor in why unions today are so small in numbers and weak in nature. The plain reality is that if your strategies are focused primarily around winning political inches, then inches at most are all you can gain. Unions must go much bigger than coloring within the lines of labor law.

Strategies to revive union power, as I believe enthusiasts for Joy Silk actually want to see, must be based on utilizing workers greatest weapon: the withdrawal of their labor, whether by legal or illegal means. Labor creates all value, which is what makes the collective action of workers dangerous for employers. Frankly this is such an obvious point, but it bears repeating ad nauseum because many have seemed to have forgotten the foundational power analysis in the circumstance between workers and owners. 

Additionally, even if one does wish for an improved set of labor laws the methods for achieving this are rooted in workplace actions. Today everyone in labor circles knows the concept of “labor peace”: when unions and employers agree to keep production rolling and to settle their differences outside of the workplace. Collective bargaining and legal methods for equalizing the playing field are an effort at implementing some form of labor peace. It is no surprise that government institutions like the NLRB are amenable to revising labor laws that funnel more workers into “peaceful” relations with their employers, while expanding the right to strike, which has been thoroughly restricted over the past seven decades, rarely emerges as a serious consideration.  

Of course peace is temporary, and I think even those that desire labor peace understand this fact. But the precondition for peace is war. At the moment, unions have not produced a war sufficient enough to compel employers, or the state, to intervene with peace offerings. Strikes, workplace disruptions, sabotage, all of these are the methods of class war for workers that, if ratcheted up, will force a crisis big enough to usher in a set of legal reforms. I’d posit that the frequency and militancy of labor strikes in the early 1930s was the necessary prelude to the Wagner Act itself, the law that brought the NLRB into existence, and any current efforts to fundamentally shift labor relations as the Act did should view this prehistory as instructive.

The premise of this piece is the law won’t save workers. The whole purpose of law is to mollify dissent by channeling it through the preferred channels of the state. Joy Silk in all likelihood will just dangle more carrots in front of most unions who won’t be able to resist falling into the trap of pursuing futile legal resolutions to a fight that must be won on the shop floor.

Alex Riccio is an organizer for Workers United, and a member of the IWW. He hosts Laborwave Radio, a podcast discussing work and union strategies.

Op-Ed: A Suggestion for Terry Durack

James Barbeiro responds to the article “Serving suggestion: Could conscription ease the hospitality staffing crisis?” by Terry Durack

By James Barbeiro

The whole thing reads like a satirical  article, it wasn't until the end that I realized that for real, it wasn't. I sort of wish it was. It would have left me with a better taste in my mouth. 

I think the article lacks any positive analysis that holds owners and shareholders accountable for the atmosphere that they have created. One where workers bear the weight of an industry that demands far too much from them to appease an overly demanding abusive public sphere. Nor does it hold workers accountable to their responsibility to make things better. 

It does seem though that workers recognize their needs aren't being met. Workers want free time, benefits, democracy in the workplace, and they want their jobs to have meaning beyond paying for their bosses' vacation homes and luxury vehicles.  

If the owning class can't provide that within their framework of the restaurant industry then they will simply fail, and workers will pick up the pieces and create a new industry that feeds people- not for profit- but for the betterment of our health and wellness. (Ideally)

I think this article is harmful to a lot of people, the insinuation to sacrifice our kids to the industry? To send students who have left school Into an industry that will chew them up and spit them right back out. This "solution" takes the blame away from our educational institutions and our governments for leaving our youth un-inspired by the futures we've presented them. Kids aren't leaving school, we've left them behind. And I can't blame them for it, the future we've presented them is bleak.

According to Terry Durack, we should be asking  our retired community members to pull themselves out of retirement to help supplement the lack of workers.  I ask, “for what?” A few extra dollars in the hands of business owners who have already mis-managed the industry? We certainly aren't asking them to come back for good wages, or benefits, or a work life balance. But on top of this, I thought the whole point of working hard for the entirety of our short lives, and missing out on important events with our families was to be able to relax in our retirements. To catch up on lost time that we sacrificed at these lifeless family businesses. To enjoy the lives we worked so hard to build. But again thanks to the lack of social infrastructure and support for our elderly retired folks, they might not have a choice but to return to work, if they ever had the chance to leave work in the first place.

And then to proclaim that refugees and asylum seekers should be thought to serve us gives me the creeps and makes me think of the horrors being committed and the ones to come as we justify worse treatments for people who are simply seeking better lives than the ones we have ruined. When massive migrations of people come to our borders thanks to a climate crisis that the restaurant industry has a huge part to play in, I fear we will be treating them with this same kind of inhumanity, likely worse. 

And all of this in the name of a big fat tip? Screw that. I'm happy to see workers refusing to "bend the knee" to crap jobs in a crap industry that pretends to be more important than it is. 

I'm happy to see workers recognize that the way the industry has been run, by "industry professionals" is completely backwards and leaves us alienated from each other and our communities. The pretext that restaurants are public spaces that people can enjoy, was never true, and is increasingly clear as we see a lack of public spaces to exist during economic turmoil. 

And then there's me and you. What are we supposed to do in the light of this continued attitude that workers have to sacrifice their lives for the economic benefits of restaurants? 

Well, we could reject it, which seems to be happening to a certain degree. 

We are certainly seeing something happening with Starbucks and Amazon unionizing. 

We can certainly recognize our worth and demand better from our employers. We need to demand better for our future generations. We need to see sustainability be at the forefront, and we need to see that food guarantees are at the forefront of how the industry functions. With droughts, floods, fires and the increasing severity of climate change, restaurants will be the first to see supply chain issues, if they haven't already. Some might be the only ones able to access cheap ingredients, will they hoard them for paying customers? Or feed the community? Will chef's continue to cater to the rich, while they wither away in relative poverty, or will they stick true to their class roots and help feed the people? Who knows! The future right now is certainly uncertain and all we can do is hope to be organized enough to be ready when these questions need answers. 

Hopefully people who think this opinion piece is great aren't the ones with the loudest answers to present.

Are Starbucks Workers Really Getting ‘Organized’?

An Organizer’s Op-Ed of Sorts on the Recent Starbucks Unionizing 

I’m seeing a lot of excitement about the recent flurry of “unionizing” at Starbucks. I welcome this trend too and I hope that it spreads far within and beyond the giant coffee chain, but I can’t help also feeling a bit of skepticism about what this unionization actually entails and what it leaves to be desired.

I’m going to offer a summarized critique of the run-of-the-mill “business unionism” that I see Starbucks Workers United practicing, provide a bit of historical context for the organizing that the press is leaving out, and lay out a brief argument for a better, more effective model of organizing that will be useful not only to workers at Starbucks, but at any workplace in any industry, right now.

Before I explain my skepticism, I’ll say this: I’m rooting for the Starbucks workers. But - while I don’t want to assume too much about how the organizing at Starbucks is being done, what I’ve seen so far fits into a pattern of “unionizing” that’s very familiar and has a lot of problems. 

It’s helpful to understand the unfortunate truth that there’s often a very big difference between “unionizing” a workplace and truly “organizing” workers, which is what really shifts the balance of power on the job in favor of the workers so that they can address their grievances effectively. “Unionizing” and “organizing” as concepts are not necessarily at odds, but the difference can be profound and have vastly different outcomes.

Unionizing is often a numbers game: the formula is essentially to get 30% of the workers to sign cards authorizing an external organization to bargain on their behalf, make a pitiful public appeal to the moral decency of the powerful, and POOF!, you have a “union”. But what history and my own experience demonstrate time and again is that this tired formula not only de-emphasizes (if not deliberately prevents) workers’ actual involvement in the process, but it puts union bureaucrats in the driver’s seat of the organizing campaign and sets it on a trajectory that’s much more predictable and deferential to the employer. But that’s not all. 

Usually the campaign is crushed, because it was playing by the rules that were written by and for the employers in the first place (see also: virtually all labor law). Then sometimes they “succeed” (meaning, they won an election), but the problem persists: the workers have little or no training on how to conduct their own organizing effectively and have learned to rely on their very docile (despite occasional big talk) union brass and a legal system better described as a cruel joke for workers. The employer may play along and throw peanuts at the workers, but their power over workplace conditions remains essentially uncontested. Often, promises are unkept and conditions backslide. Oh, in the process, maybe you helped some “pro-labor” politician who spoke at your rally get a few more votes. It’s “unionism” on the terms of the employers and the law, and it’s a path rife with costly shortcuts when it comes to truly building workers’ power. 

Organizing looks very different. It understands that the workers hold the key to their own better future, and it focuses on worker-to-worker relationship building—fostering the bonds of solidarity that allow workers to discover this “key” and then use it. It means starting with what matters most to the workers and organizing around that, instead of projecting issues and solutions onto them. It means offering education and training that empowers and emboldens workers without insulting their innate intelligence. It means mobilizing supporters without them acting in the stead of the workers. And by damned, it means discovering and flexing that muscle of collective power on the job, where workers are most powerful. It’s “unionism” on the workers’ terms, and it doesn’t matter if the employer, the press or anyone else decides it’s a “union” or not. You can call this phenomenon a “union”, or you can call it “banana” for all I care. The content—workers acting like a union—is what’s important. 

With this understanding, “organizing” is essentially about building relationships with workers, while “unionizing” is about building a relationship with the employer. If a union’s purported aim is to advance the interests of workers, then why would it spend so much energy on the latter? 

If it wasn’t already clear - I’m not anti-union. Quite the opposite. What’s important here is how we define and practice unionism, and I take exception to the prevailing definition and practice of it today. I often say that “union” is a verb more than it is a noun. If in a “union” you don’t see workers themselves in the driver seat, together, taking action on the job where they have the most power, developing their own sense of agency to change their conditions, and practicing meaningful solidarity with workers in adjacent nodes in the supply chain and beyond when called upon to do so… then it’s hard for me to think of it as much more than an expensive dog and pony show put on by highly paid “Labor Relations” professionals. That’s a lot less compelling isn’t it? 

It takes time to build up a solid committee of workers who can take successful action on the job, win better conditions and defend their gains, who are prepared to weather the storm when the employer inevitably pushes back, and who truly share and take ownership over the work of organizing. Building workers’ power through organizing is not a numbers game (although clearly the more workers involved, the merrier); there are no shortcuts, and no ballot victory or formal bargaining agreement will replace the far superior power of the organized workers.

Interestingly, there is actually historical precedent for this kind of genuine organizing at Starbucks. While the press is sounding the trumpets for the “first unionized Starbucks” locations in history, you may be surprised to learn that the recent organizing led by Starbucks United is not the first organizing effort at Starbucks. Like, at all. In fact, it was the grassroots Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) that made the first major organizing foray into the coffee chain starting around 2004. The IWW’s Starbucks campaign lasted for several years and involved hundreds of workers, and it was arguably the IWW’s most visible and successful organizing endeavor during that time. The workers’ creative, ambitious, and often successful direct actions made tangible improvements in workplace conditions and transformed those involved from despondent subjects of corporate tyranny into dignified workplace militants. Their actions also generated considerable buzz in the press, as did the nefarious union-busting tactics employed by then-CEO Howard Schultz (sound familiar?). But perhaps because none of those workers attempted the formalized union election process (which was actually a strategic decision on the part of the workers), even sympathetic media today somehow do not consider this union activity “unionizing” and they make zero mention of it today. 

That particular wave of IWW organizing at Starbucks eventually waned. Victories were achieved, mistakes were made, and many of its participants eventually transitioned into other industries. The campaign’s successes, as well as its blunders, proved to be valuable lessons that the IWW absorbed into its training curricula and its organizing methodology. The campaign also dispelled any illusions the IWW had about working within the “labor relations” system.

But the more important piece here is that the experiences the workers shared and the lessons they learned during those years have followed them, and they continue to provide them with a rich source of confidence and wisdom as they confront new injustices in the workplace and beyond. They’ve taken the union with them and it will likely be with them for life. The task of the labor movement today should be to find better ways of sustaining what these workers started, especially as unprecedented numbers of new Starbucks workers step onto the stage of history to assert their dignity. 

So, it remains to be seen how things will play out in this recent unionizing wave at Starbucks. I’m hoping for the best outcome for the workers and I’ll gladly do what I can to support them in improving their conditions if called on to do so. But this is a timely opportunity to address some lingering concerns I have with unions in the mainstream today, and to advocate for a better unionism that workers can actually get excited about and use today.

To learn more about organizing and how you can also do it, visit www.iww.org. 

——

Mike H is a longtime organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World union and is a co-author of Wobblyism: Toward a Revolutionary Unionism for Today. Big woop. He couldn’t be bothered with Twitter but he does respond to good faith inquiries at shelloftheold@gmail.com. Holler.