The Starbucks Problem

[mina.magpie]

The Starbucks Problem

The leaked audio file provides the public with a rare window into the paranoid and anxiety-ridden conscience of the corporate elite. On the call, Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus, corporate executives, right-wing activists, and notorious anti-union lobbyist Rick Berman rail against the possibility of a revitalized labor movement, with Marcus referring to unionization of retail as the "demise of a civilization."One participant coins the term the "Starbucks Problem," referring to the possibility that workers will simply form their own unions, rather than waiting for the lethargic union establishment to initiate organizing drives.

We've been seeing alot of these flashmob-type wildcat strikes in the UK and Europe, and I've been wondering why there's not a peep of similar anger from the US. Seems there is about to be. Either that or the mainstream media we get over here simply isn't covering the civil and labour unrest I keep expecting out of this meltdown.

Mina.

[lisagurl]

The only reason corporations have been able to grow so big is because of the willingness of the workers to be submissive.

[NicholeW.]

Having lived in both Europe and US my view is that USA citizens are even more herd-like than Europeans. I know little about ZA society.

Will the "starbucks problem" spread? Perhaps, but I'd be willing to bet that it will not spread widely in USA except among industries that tend to be filled with younger people with some educational aspirations.

Just the way we work over here, mina. No one likes to be thought of as "not fitting in" As a folk we are tending toward the lowest possible common denominator and the least rebellious approach to social change.

That changed in the late 20s and early 30s of the last century, but only until people were presented with WWII to reestablish the herd-rules since pulling together against the "common-enemy" trumps everything over here. WE know all the rest of the world is jealous of USA.

I would doubt that you'll see much wildcat union striking or even a huge growth in starbucks unions over here. Everyone who thinks they will make it to the elites someday, thinks they have made it, or belives they are making it now will not join. The only place I'd expect to see unionization succeed would prolly be at Starbucks & other places that hire younger people rather than older ones. Walmart will never suffer through unionization here and neither will Home Depot. 

[Janet_Girl]

Some companies have policies in place that if you even talk about unions, you will lose your position.  Lowe's has such a provision in the polices, and you have to agree to it.

And certain unions in the states have an image problem.  The UAW has had a problem of being Mafia connected for years.  The Teamsters have a similar problem.  And many people don't like the idea of having to join the union.  But as the corporations take advantage of its workers, the need for a union will rise.  People are getting tired of be the losers in the battle for the all mighty bottom line.

And many people don't understand why the unions here go on strike.  I asked a friend, who is a member of the UAW union, why they were on strike.  He said for better pay.  They were wanting a 3% raise at the time.  He was getting strike pay.  I asked him if he was out of work for six months wouldn't he be losing out on pay.  He said yes but it was the principle of the thing. 

That just doesn't make sense.  If you aren't working, you don't get paid.  If you get that 3% raise, you will never make up the loss.

I am not anti-union, but I would not join one.  Being forced to pay someone that tells me to go on strike just doesn't make any reasonable sense to me.

Janet

[NicholeW.]

American workers are generally ignorant of the benefits of collective anything. They like to think of themselves as rugged individualists who can compete favorably with the financiers, capitalists and policy makers. God forbid anyone would give up their individuality to work with others to better themselves, the situation or their ability to live a comfortable life while giving up on the idea that they will be struck by lightning three times and live while winning the lottery once and not spending the entire ball within the first three years.

There's a reason our public schools are so noted -- they remain bastions of the powerful so that people can learn to grow up in abject ignorance and never manage to compare their lives with their ideologies. Of course the MSM play a large part in that as well as they provide entertainment and meaninglessness for the willfully ignorant.

Of course unions were all Mafia -controlled. But the Wall Street brokerage firms were never subject to "organized-crime." Simply because the best-organized criminal enterprises of all in USA are Wall Street and the major corporate players. Sheesh.

Most Americans oth are content with seeing how "honest" they are because they willingly sign away all real control over their lives and believe they are "stronger" on their own than they would be with a few million other workers banded together.

The elites in this country have done their work well. The next-to-bottom workers: service workers who provide the economy with most of its jobs anymore after the de-industrialization of the economy are the most ardent anti-union people in the country. They feed on pablum and enjoy the taste while they struggle and walk afraid due to their loneliness most of the time.


The next most frequently ignorant are the tech-specialists who somehow think they are indispensible. Although perhaps the ongoing deportation of their jobs to India, Bangladesh and Malaysia will convince them someday that they have been had as well. Although no one ever went broke underestimating the bone-deep ignorance of the American public.


Nichole

[mina.magpie]

Wow, thanks for the insightful responses. Sadly what you're saying about that "I don't need anybody else's help" attitude rings very true, from what I've seen and read in the media, both mainstream and alternative.

Good luck y'all.

Mina.

[Hazumu]

Nichole;

You might add that a lot of the current attitudes you mention -- "'individualism' is stronger/more moral than collectivization" is one -- are indoctrinated.  The public schools and the MSM have been steadily indoctrinating this idea for years, producing a vast herd of sheeple that each thinks of themselves as a lone wolf.

Now, they're wrecking the economy. 

Without social programs, we'll become more dependent on the corporations for ANY kind of job at ANY pay level, with those who don't have jobs (can anybody say freak ->-bleeped-<-s?) an example of what happens if these 'rugged individualists' don't "do what ya' gotta' do"  But we'll be more individualistic, because social programs only made us dependent on the state, and dependence=weakness.

With the schools in tatters, homeschooling will become more necessary.  And we'll be able to protect our kids against immoral ideas like 'homosexuality/deviance is okay', and that the earth is older than the bible says it is, and that humans and dinosaurs didn't coexist...  And with homeschooling, you don't have to worry your children hear those immoral things from some strange kid during recess.  Or worse yet, from a radical teacher!

I feel we're watching the whole world economy being Enron'd.

Karen

[mina.magpie]

Nichole: Trade Unions used to form a very powerful part of the anti-apartheid struggle, so they are a significant voice in society and government, sadly, as the ANC, in alliance with the Communist Party and our "union of unions", COSATU, has become more and more corrupt, so have the unions who are in government with them. Service delivery has tanked, social services are non-existent and our next president is up on major fraud and corruption charges. Unfortunately the majority of the country's population is still so emotionally invested in the governing alliance that they will continue voting for them. I suppose we have a good example to follow: Zim is just next door.

That said, I read about local initiatives to organise community co-ops and LETS systems and the like on a fairly regular basis in the anarchist press. There is still a very strong revolutionary streak in our blood over here, and one can only hope that, somewhere along the line, we use it.

Sigh ... good luck to us all I think.

Mina.

Post Merge: February 14, 2009, 11:52:34 AM

I feel we're watching the whole world economy being Enron'd.

I'd happily agree with you. Okay, maybe not happily, but you know what I mean.

Mina.

[NicholeW.]

Nichole;

You might add that a lot of the current attitudes you mention -- "'individualism' is stronger/more moral than collectivization" is one -- are indoctrinated.  The public schools and the MSM have been steadily indoctrinating this idea for years, producing a vast herd of sheeple that each thinks of themselves as a lone wolf.

I thought that was exactly what I did say, Karen. Elites run the public schools to indoctrinate the morons into thinking alone and weak is much to be preferred to collectively stronger. The MSM preaches either that or gives pablum to those too ignorant and idiotic to have a thought in the first place and then we watch both trash unions as "in bed with organized crime."

The one thing you should notice about our two rival organized crime networks are this: Wall Street was the invention of British elites that ran the "revolution." It was founded by Aaron Burr, Jefferson's vp. His disagreements with Hamilton were personal, not professional. It became the accepted organized crime.

The later organized crime was the result, both at its inception and at it's transplantation to USA, of a communal association of Sicilians and southern Italians to protect themselves from predatory Normans/French first and in USA to protect their economic possibilities against the established elites. They knew the power of community.

That it became involved with unions and now is inextricably intertwined with Wall Street is of no surprise. As an org strengthens and immigrants get acculturated and rise economically their interests change: one enters the union and tries to make that safe for one's people. Then one continues their growth, so to speak.

The difference between various criminal enterprises is that some have the clout politically to make their crimes legal and the other criminals do not. Pretty simple if you take a few minutes and examine what's actually there rather than what you've been ideologically indoctrinated with since the fourth or fifth grade.

Nichole

[Alyssa M.]

I thought the Charbucks problem was that they burn their coffee and killed the Coffee Connection. If you lived in Boston in the mid-90's, you know what I'm talking about. Yes, I'm still bitter about something that happened 15 years ago. It's a Boston thing. I'm also bitter that Macy's took over Filene's, that the Mets won the 1986 World Series, and that Wade Boggs subsequently traded to the Yankees.

Oh, well, at least my local hippie coffee shops do well by me. Life in the Great American West can help you keep things in perspective.

Corporations can't oppress you if you don't jump into the consumerist trap they set. Well, at least until they start paving over your land, the bastards. HAYDUKE LIVES!

~Bonnie Abbzug
Post Merge: February 14, 2009, 04:47:21 PM

With the schools in tatters, homeschooling will become more necessary.  And we'll be able to protect our kids against immoral ideas like 'homosexuality/deviance is okay', and that the earth is older than the bible says it is, and that humans and dinosaurs didn't coexist...  And with homeschooling, you don't have to worry your children hear those immoral things from some strange kid during recess.  Or worse yet, from a radical teacher!

[mina.magpie]

OMG Science?! How could those unconscionable bastards teach the poor child SCIENCE?!

We need to bring back pyres, and soon! It's in all of humanity's best interest that this twisted madness be stopped!

Mina.

[RebeccaFog]

We've been seeing alot of these flashmob-type wildcat strikes in the UK and Europe, and I've been wondering why there's not a peep of similar anger from the US. Seems there is about to be. Either that or the mainstream media we get over here simply isn't covering the civil and labour unrest I keep expecting out of this meltdown.

Mina.

Our crappy mainstream media isn't covering any of that for us either.  Many people here now look to the world to receive real news.


Once, I was very obvious concerning my sympathies.  Then, for a while, I was able to become detached completely. Now I see my teenage fears are coming true. Greed and corruption are everywhere.  I kind of hold back about these feelings because they take me to places I should never be.

One day maybe a tsunami of people will take back what is ours.

[mina.magpie]

One day maybe a tsunami of people will take back what is ours.

Hugses. If there's one thing history shows, it's that everything ebbs and flows sweetie. Everything runs in cycles, so I'm quite convinced there'll be a better time for us, followed by worse, then better ... you get the idea. The bad times define the good and make them precious.

I know it's silly, but that idea gives me alot of comfort.

Mina.

[RebeccaFog]

You're right.  I'm just a bit lost.

[Alyssa M.]

Well, I dunno bout all yalls, but I git my news from America's Finest News Source, and it never dun me no wrong. 

[imaz]

Having lived in both Europe and US my view is that USA citizens are even more herd-like than Europeans. I know little about ZA society.

Will the "starbucks problem" spread? Perhaps, but I'd be willing to bet that it will not spread widely in USA except among industries that tend to be filled with younger people with some educational aspirations.

Just the way we work over here, mina. No one likes to be thought of as "not fitting in" As a folk we are tending toward the lowest possible common denominator and the least rebellious approach to social change.

That changed in the late 20s and early 30s of the last century, but only until people were presented with WWII to reestablish the herd-rules since pulling together against the "common-enemy" trumps everything over here. WE know all the rest of the world is jealous of USA.

I would doubt that you'll see much wildcat union striking or even a huge growth in starbucks unions over here. Everyone who thinks they will make it to the elites someday, thinks they have made it, or belives they are making it now will not join. The only place I'd expect to see unionization succeed would prolly be at Starbucks & other places that hire younger people rather than older ones. Walmart will never suffer through unionization here and neither will Home Depot.

I agree with all that you say but here in the rest of the world we aren't jealous of the USA!

Maybe the UK, Israel, Australia and Poland to name a few have a tendency to be the US's lapdogs but elsewhere? In my experience the US has a very bad reputation throughout most of the world, a reputation worsened by it's military interventions, support of Israel's racist policies and promotion of Coups d'états and regime change in many countries.

Of course we don't blame the American people for their government's policies but we do see the US in a very different light from most Americans.

Peace and love

[RebeccaFog]

I wish our smelly government would leave the country.

[gennee]

There are grassroots efforts to form unions in America. Unions were first formed because workers wanted to improve the condition of their lives. Prior to that, workers were getting low wages, working in poor or dangerous conditions, received no healthcare or compensatio if someone was injured on the jobs. When the federal government became an arbitor during labor negotiations, it was the beginning of the demise of unions.

Labor has a long history in Europe and America which is often ignored in education and the media. I am a volunteer with an organization which is working to create independent media that addresses the concerns of poor and working men and women. Middle class people are now falling into the ranks of the working poor. Instead of the divide and conquer tactics the elite uses to keep us at each others throats, resources are provided where people are empowered to help solve the problems in their communities.

Gennee

[RebeccaFog]

That's interesting. 

What kind of materials do you use in the media?  Statistics, people's stories, or essays?

[gennee]

The organization produces it own magazine. The articles are written by members. They do the research, the wrting, publishing and web design. We are TOTALLY independent. It was one of the reasons that I became a volunteer.No corporate sponsors or government funding at all. The magazine, Collective Endeavor, is sent to members, supporters and other grassroots organizations around the country.

One can learning systemic organizing either as a fulltime or part time organizer.  System organizing is transplantable. It can be taken back to the community, another city or country. I would to see this used to create independent education and medical care. I have mulled it in my mind in regards to transgender people.

Gennee