NYT: Icy Day Finds Old Union Outside Modern City Shops (Starbucks)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/nyregion/22starbucks.html


James Estrin/The New York Times

Workers affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World pressed their effort to organize Starbucks on Monday.


By COLIN MOYNIHAN
Published: January 22, 2008

The dramatic battles of the American labor movement were often fought in hazardous settings like the coal fields of Kentucky or the textile mills of Massachusetts.

In recent times, though, a different type of labor dispute has become familiar in New York, focused on the retail outlets that keep upscale customers fed and caffeinated.

And so it was that a crowd of about 50 people wrapped in scarves and bandannas against the cold gathered Monday morning outside a Starbucks at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 33rd Street.

As their breath steamed the air, they chanted and sang. They carried long banners bearing the logo of the Industrial Workers of the World, a union founded in 1905 that has been trying to organize Starbucks workers since 2004.

Red and black anarchist flags waved in the wind, and one woman held aloft a placard depicting a pouncing black cat toppling what appeared to be a venti latte cup emblazoned with a dollar sign.

This type of labor action has become a familiar story in a city that takes its coffee and takeout seriously. For example, the Teamsters accused FreshDirect, the grocery delivery company, of firing workers just before a union vote last fall, an assertion the company denied. The unionization effort failed.

FULL story at link.