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- The Debate in DSA on Anti-Imperialism with contributions from Grayson Lanza, Dan La Botz, Sam Heft-Luthy and Alex Stout
- Labor: Interviews with Starbucks baristas from Buffalo and Marysville | ALU: What the labor movement can learn | A response to R&R´s Position on the Rank & File Strategy by Ryan Mosgrove | Socialist Feminism
- Socialist Feminism: Book Review: Without Apology – The Abortion Struggle Now | A Call to Action for Trans Rights
- Eco-socialism: Should Socialists Argue for Degrowth?
- DSA: Should DSA Organize a Special Convention? | “What the Heck is Trotskyism, Anyway?”
A Letter from the Editors
Bold Like a Barista
By Alex Moni-Sauri and Stephan Kimmerle
“Our store is on strike,” declared Sarah Pappin on April 16. The barista’s message to her employer, Starbucks: “Let us be a union!” While she and her co-workers walked the picket line in front of the store at 5th Ave and Pike St in Seattle, salaried ma-nagers from all over the city tried to keep the store open.
Despite all the disgusting union-busting methods of Starbucks, so many baristas are stepping up, organizing, and fighting back.
The campaigning style the first unionizing stores adopted was straight out of the well-worn playbook typically used by SEIU and many other large unions: File for a union with the NLRB, keep friendly relations between “Starbucks partners” (corporate jargon to present managers and workers as equal stakeholders with a common goal), and do not raise demands, because doing so would alienate workers who are unsure about the union. With this approach, it is hard to develop the necessary power to force Starbucks to engage in any serious contract negotiations, as high turnover rates make efforts even harder and Starbucks is committed to its anti-union stance.
This playbook is being pushed aside. A number of strikes have shut down Starbucks stores, and as workers build power from below they are putting forward clear demands. Take Katie McCoy and her co-workers in Marysville. They closed their Starbucks down in a three-day strike, even before filing for an NLRB election (see page 8). They highlighted the need for baristas to have a union with bold demands, like a $20 per hour minimum wage, ten-hour breaks between shifts, and more.
A similar comparison can be made between the failed unionization efforts at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer and the newly-formed Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island. The latter won their election with a militant unionism that put workers at the center. They raised the ceiling of possibility in the popular imagination by demanding $30 per hour (see article on page 10).
A new class-struggle unionism is developing. This new generation hitting the workplace was politicized by the broadly socialist ideas made popular by the Bernie Sanders campaign and through the Black Lives Matter uprising. A good number of DSA members are involved in organizing solidarity and spreading the efforts to rebuild labor.
Over the last 150 years of US history, socialists have played a decisive role in every major upturn in the class struggle. Today the role of DSA and other class-conscious fighters could prove equally consequential in determining whether the current upsurge continues to develop on the scale needed, or whether the revival is cut across by a combination of employer intransigence and co-option by more conservative labor leaders. Overcoming these obstacles will require strong rank-and-file organization and a layer of conscious socialist activists equipped with clear ideas for how to fight back.
In solidarity,
Alex Moni-Sauri and Stephan Kimmerle
Reform & Revolution, #8: Anti-Imperialism Today
