Starbucks Organizing Continues to Move Ahead
By 
The Starbucks union campaign has slowed down in the face of the company’s massive labor law violations. But it’s far from over. Take what is happening in Columbus.
Tucked around the corner of North High Street and a mere crosswalk away from Ohio State University’s sprawling student union sits a Starbucks café.
College students cramming for exams make temporary homes on the cafe’s front patio, not minding the near-constant sound of cars and construction around them. But college students also line up behind the coffee shop’s bar, furiously mixing and brewing, cleaning and sorting, taking orders and giving back lattes and iced teas.
Of the store’s nearly 40 employees, the vast majority are full-time Ohio State students. Like many students, their job pays tuition, covers groceries, ensures they can pay rent on time. For many employees – whom Starbucks calls “partners” – the stakes are high. They cannot afford to lose their jobs. But they also cannot afford to work in what they said are unsustainable conditions.
That’s why on Monday, the majority of eligible workers at the 1347 N. High St. location voted to unionize.
In a letter sent to Starbucks president and interim CEO Howard Schultz and undersigned by 21 of the store’s employees, workers accused the coffee giant of unfair scheduling, inconsistent disciplinary practices and of “reducing Partners to cogs in a machine.”
“As a campus store, our needs are specific: Partners travel to their homes during academic breaks and deserve to be secure in their employment when they return,” the letter read. “We work to pay rent and tuition, to keep food on the table, and to have healthcare. No one should be robbed of these basic rights in the name of corporate greed and favoritism.”
Howard Schultz fundamentally disagrees that people shouldn’t be robbed of their basic rights in the name of corporate greed and favoritism. In fact, that’s his central belief system.