Thomas L. Knapp:

“Like WalMart, Starbucks is immediately controversial because its employees are not unionized.”

Actually, a lot of Starbucks workers are “unionized” (i.e. they are members of the Starbucks Workers Union, which is affiliated with the IWW), in the US and elsewhere.

So far as I know, none of Starbucks stores have NLRB-type collective bargaining agreements, but that’s not unusual — IWW usually eschews such state-controlled ways of doing things. In the one case where they played that game, Starbucks appealed and IWW withdrew the election call (the appeal would have taken years to resolve) and went back to its usual worker solidarity/direct negotiation strategy.

So, in other words, being a member of a union that does not resort to either government power or outright gangster tactics has about as little effect in raising wages or benefits as being a member of the Kiwanis or Rotary?

So far as I know, none of Starbucks stores have NLRB-type collective bargaining agreements, but that’s not unusual — IWW usually eschews such state-controlled ways of doing things. In the one case where they played that game, Starbucks appealed and IWW withdrew the election call (the appeal would have taken years to resolve) and went back to its usual worker solidarity/direct negotiation strategy.