Taking the Shop: An Interview with the Slow Bloom Coffee Cooperative
It would have been easy to give up when their workplace closed doors, but the former Augie’s Coffee workers loved their craft and wanted to continue serving coffee. They decided to organize the Slow Bloom Coffee Cooperative in Redlands California, a coffee cooperative run completely by the former staff of Augie’s Coffee, and are organized as SBCC Local 1011 of UE.
Strikewave caught up with Erik Lopez and Matthew Soliz, two former Augie’s Coffee baristas involved with the union drive and the founding of Slow Bloom.
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"If the workers aren't motivated to organize themselves, there's no union." An Interview with Connor Spence of the Amazon Labor Union.
Last week on Staten Island, a tiny, independent union did something that no one else in the American labor movement has yet been able to do: they won an election at Amazon. Strikewave spoke with Connor Spence, who serves as the Amazon Labor Union's vice president of membership, on Monday, just after Amazon had refused to accept ALU's request-to-bargain letter.
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“We're not afraid to push back, because journalists have been beaten up in this country.” An Interview with Jon Schleuss, the president of the NewsGuild-CWA.
While union membership continues to decline across both the public and private sectors, one industry is bucking the trend - publishing. Led by the furious pace of organizing set by the News Guild-CWA, there was a 144% increase in union representation in publishing since 2020. Over the last four years, they have organized approximately 6,400 workers and believe they now represent more than 50% of the industry.
We caught up with Jon Schleuss, president of the News Guild-CWA, to dive deep into what’s driving this impressive organizing pace.
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“Workers across the country at Starbucks are facing the same conditions. And this isn’t an anomaly.” An Interview with Brian Murray of SB WorkersUnited.
Just last month, workers at a Starbucks location in Buffalo became the first of nearly 9,000 Starbucks stores to unionize after they voted to join the Rochester Regional Joint Board/Workers United. Since then, workers at a second store in the Buffalo area won their union after the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) certified their election and workers at over a dozen stores in eight states have filed for their own union elections. We caught up with Brian Murray last week, a Starbucks worker and an SBWorkersUnited organizing committee member in the Buffalo area, to talk about the historic victories in Buffalo, the recent strike at the Elmwood Ave store over COVID safety, the quickly expanding scope of this organizing drive, and preparing for contract negotiations with Starbucks.
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“Solidarity has to be Built in Struggle.” An Interview with Cliff Smith of the Roofers and Waterproofers, Local 36.
If you have been to a march or demonstration in Los Angeles, chances are you’ve seen Roofers and Waterproofers Local 36. While the building trades are often characterized as “right-wing” or “conservative”, the Local 36 union banner with the demand “Build the People’s Democratic Workers Party” is always present at actions decrying police brutality, as well as at actions demanding accountability from public officials.
Strikewave caught up with Cliff Smith, the elected business manager of Local 36, to learn more about how the union understands the fight against police violence and how they are organizing the labor movement against police brutality.
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"It’s about having a democratic voice in Starbucks." Interview with Brian Murray of SBWorkersUnited.
A little over three weeks ago, Starbucks workers at stores across Buffalo and Western New York sent a letter to CEO Kevin Johnson, announcing that they formed a union, Starbucks Workers United (SBWorkersUnited), and urging him to agree to fair election principles. Instead of waiting for Starbucks to live up to its stated progressive ideals, SBWorkersUnited filed for elections at three stores, with two more stores quickly following suit. Instead of agreeing to the fair election principles, the company responded with an aggressive union-busting campaign.
Strikewave spoke with Starbucks worker and organizing committee member Brian Murray about their organizing drive.
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"We work for a magazine whose logo is a literal dandy with a top hat, but we are part of the labor movement." Interview with David Muto of the New Yorker Union.
Union members at the New Yorker, Pitchfork, and Ars Technica recently voted to authorize a strike, with 98 percent of members voting in favor across the three units. All three units are bargaining their first contracts and have hit similar obstacles with their parent company, media giant Conde Nast. The core issue, of course, is the money: a livable wage, a decent salary floor, and annual raises that keep up with the cost of living in New York City. Strikewave caught up with David Muto, vice chair of the New Yorker union, about the long running labor fight.
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"COVID revealed so many issues that were under the surface, particularly in the arts". Interview with Amanda Tobin of the MASS MoCa union.
Early this March, museum workers at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary (MASS MoCa) went public with their union organizing drive with UAW 2110, joining the wave of museum workers organizing across the country and in particular in the Northeast. Since the beginning of the pandemic, UAW has organized workers at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Portland Museum of Art; they also represent museum workers at the New Museum and the Tenement Museum. We spoke with Amanda Tobin, MASS MoCa’s Associate Director of Education, about what prompted the organizing drive and what issues within arts and cultural institutions the pandemic has exacerbated.
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"There’s a big movement in newsrooms across the country". Interview with Clayton Guse of the new NYDN Union.
Last week, the digital, print, and photo staff and reporters of the New York Daily News announced they had formed a union, with more than 80% in support of joining the News Guild of New York, the union for approximately 3,000 journalists and media employees. With the announcement, all but one of Tribune Publishing’s newsrooms are organized, following recent victories at the Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, and the Virginian Pilot. We spoke with Clayton Guse, a transit reporter at the Daily News since 2018 and union organizing committee member about the organizing effort.
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"The PRO Act is a great place for us to organize workers in general, whether or not they're in a union". Interview with Jimmy Williams of IUPAT.
Strikewave spoke to IUPAT general vice president Jimmy Williams about the PRO Act, labor's relationship to the Democratic Party, and the lessons of the Obama administration.
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"We have been disrespected at the table and the Board of Education won't bargain." Interview with Kenzo Shibata of CTU.
We spoke to Kenzo Shibata, a high school teacher and the Functional Vice President for High Schools of the Chicago Teachers Union, about school reopenings and the Board of Education’s threat of a lockout.
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"We’re fighting for our community, for our patients": Interview with Michael Fitzsimmons of NYSNA at AMC
After two years of bargaining, Albany Med management introduced their last offer to the NYSNA nurses. They rejected the proposal and instead voted to authorize a one day strike earlier this month in the midst of a record-breaking surge of COVID cases and related hospitalizations. After joining nurses on their picket line in December, Strikewave spoke with Michael Fitzsimmons, a registered nurse in the cardiac ICU unit and member of the union's negotiating committee, after the strike to learn more about the conditions in the hospital and what led nurses to take to the picket lines.
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Pittsburgh NewsGuild’s Michael Fuoco: Post-Gazette is imposing “every nefarious type of union busting”
We spoke with Michael Fuoco, president of the Pittsburgh NewsGuild, which represents 123 reporters, photographers, and copy editors at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In late 2019, Post-Gazette reporters held a month-long byline strike in response to mistreatment and bad faith bargaining from Post-Gazette executive editor Keith Burris and Block Communications, a family-run company that has owned the Post-Gazette since 1927. After three and a half years of negotiations, Post-Gazette management declared an impasse and unilaterally imposed changes to working conditions. The Pittsburgh NewsGuild filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board and held a secret ballot vote on strike authorization.
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TNG-CWA's Jon Schleuss: Covid-19 is an "Extinction Level Event" If We Don't Save the News
It has grave consequences for our democracy because when you lose these publications across the country, you’re losing that voice. National media can’t fill that. Corruption goes up, the county, the boards, the judge, the school board, everyone goes corrupt because no one’s minding the store.
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