October | 2022 | Moana Marie Crab

Reflections triggered by an article in the Washington Post today entitled: Howard Schultz’s fight to stop a Starbucks barista uprising: Starbucks CEO saw his unionizing baristas as a threat to his life’s work. They said he didn’t understand how the country and their lives had changed. https://wapo.st/3CFZQHJ

This is a story focused on the visionary founder and CEO of Starbucks, and his blindness when it comes to understanding and accepting that his business model and brand of “benevolent capitalism” may have to adapt because it no longer meets the needs of a sizeable number of workers who now want to unionize.

I was drawn to this story, as the daughter of a man whose entire career was as a union organizer, educator, and administrator. We grew up singing union songs in the car, and walking picket lines, though more for civil rights than labor strikes. And yet, in my adult life, I have never belonged to a union, more by chance than choice. My employers were usually non-profit community health centers which in Hawaii are not unionized.

It begins with a fascinating portrait of the man, Howard Schultz, so powerfully motivated by his childhood living with an abusive and alcoholic father, whose problems Shultz blamed on humiliating work experiences as a taxi and truck driver. Schulz was determined to create a more humane, cutting edge corporate culture, one that would offer employees a leg up into “the American Dream”. Starbucks provided health insurance, even to part time “partners” (as workers were called), offered corporate stock options, and provided free online college at Arizona University to its largely young college bound baristas; a value-driven organization that at least attempted to build a respectful, friendly and quality-driven store environment for workers as well as customers. The article goes on to describe how the company phenomenal global niche growth occurred during the 1990s when national urban and multinational growth was booming and “all things seemed possible”. They had a unique, popular, high end product that took the fast food franchise model that has flourished with entry level and immigrant labor, and reworked it for an urban youth workforce and clientele. The workforce consisted of lots of students who wanted part time work where hours fluctuated around their changing schedules. In these boom times, the CEO’s far sighted, progressive ideas for building the company investment in its workforce paid off, producing corporate profits, good bottom line results for shareholders, and turning the CEO into a billionaire.

The founder left Starbucks in 2018 to pursue other interests. Then the pandemic happened, wreaked its havoc on the world, and upended businesses and the lives of workers. As we all have heard, mostly in the form of complaints from businesses, workers became a scarce commodity, and began quitting bad jobs, moving to better ones, and/or demanding better wages and working conditions. From the point of view of workers, working conditions everywhere became far more dangerous and stressful, they had far greater struggles balancing family and work, with schools closing often and affordable daycare harder to find.

An interesting aside: The history of earlier worldwide plagues, such as the 14^th century’s Black Death, which resulted in the deaths of as much as half the population, shows remarkably similar results: In class-stratified Britain for example, where the class you were born into determined all your life choices, peasants who survived the Black Death, suddenly found themselves in demand, could get higher wages to stay and work on the landlords’ farm. (Although the ruling class passed laws aimed at curtailing this trend, outlawing asking for wages above a certain level). Many peasants migrated to cities where opportunities in trades and business had opened up to lower classes, especially for women, given the shortage of manpower. See PBS Lucy Worsley Investigates. How the Black Death Spread https://www.pbs.org/video/how-black-death-spread-hcbfc2/

Back to our story: Schultz came out of retirement this year on a personal mission to stop the unionization of Starbucks, which he believed would destroy the company. He went on a listening tour at stores around the country (although he never met with any pro-union employees). He believed in his absence the company had grown out of touch with its “partners”, and needed to change that, but he still firmly believes that his brand of benevolent capitalism still has more to offer them than do unions. As Starbucks CEO, he has been accused of intimidation of and retaliation towards pro-union workers, such as hiring and firing, giving raises to workers in non-union stores, but not to unionized ones or stores in the process of petitioning for elections. In some cases, the National Labor Relations Board has condemned the actions of Starbucks. In one case, a federal court ordered the company to re-instate seven pro-union employees who were fired from a Memphis store. Other cases are working their way through the courts. Over 200 stores voted to unionize in 2021 and 2022 (out of over 15,000 US stores), and Starbucks continues to refuse to negotiate with unions, so these workers remain unrepresented.

In September, at a gathering of Starbucks biggest investors, Shultz introduced his successor and unveiled a series of measures designed to address the chief concerns he heard on his US listening tour with baristas (at least with those not publicly pro-union), to “restore trust”, and show workers that trusting the company is preferable to trusting a union. They all sound like good measures, ones that could make life easier for baristas working at minimum wage trying to make ends meet. But they are still paternalistic, dependent upon a benevolent dictator, or perhaps more like benevolent investors, an oxymoron if there ever was one. The problem with Schultz’s model is that all of his favorite worker benefits can be undone with the stroke of a pen, should a new CEO (or investors) decide it’s necessary for the bottom line. It is not a worker-owned company, the workers are not “partners”, they are just small pawns in a large game. And In this imperfect capitalist system, one CEO, no matter how well-intentioned and benevolent, is no substitute for the collective power of a union.

When the Unions inspiration through the workers blood shall run

There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun

Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?

For the union makes us strong

Solidarity forever

Solidarity forever…

September 2022: #1

Grandpa Peter and Richard Tamati made somen noodles, miso soup and shrimp tempura for dinner. Grandpa told Tama that since they were the 2 chefs they could sample the food like you see in these photos. Sorry, parents! We DID eventually eat at table. Happy Aloha Friday!

#2. Tama was a big help on Monday when our new refrigerator was delivered a day early. He helped unload food from the old refrig into coolers, carefully watched the delivery crew and told them “Good job!” when they were leaving. Then he helped Grandma put all the food back in the new refrigerator, noticing there was one ice cream cone in the freezer. And then he arranged all the magnets on the new fridge. “This is important work” quoth he, and he was right.

#3. Tama went political post carding to voters at ‘Ulu La’au. He wrote one postcard, ate snacks & enthusiastically explored “a new park!”. Rain blanketed parts of Waimea in the late afternoon, but this lovely place was dry and nearly deserted,as a gentle fog rolled in. First time I’ve seen Tama climb a tree!

#4. In Which… Tama finds a long ignored stuffed bee toy in one of his boxes at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and Grandma spontaneously tells Tama a story about a time when she was a little girl and stepped on a bee

Perhaps it was the sound effects. Tama liked the story so much he asked me to tell it again and again. Then he said “We should make a book!”. I replied that was a great idea and suggested he draw the pictures and Grandma would write the story, and so we did. Since bees are yellow, Tama chose a yellow crayon and would not be dissuaded from his choice, hence, you may have trouble making out some of the illustrations.

Then we acted out the story, over and over, with me playing Doris as a child, and Tama playing Mommy (After several rounds I asked if he wanted to be Mommy or Daddy. He immediately chose Daddy, so then little Doris went crying to her Daddy. Tama evolved the story further as we went along, since he did not like the fact of nature that the bee died when Doris stepped on it. “Daddy” took out the stinger in little Doris’ foot with a giant pair of foam block “tweezers” , and he then placed the stinger back into the stuffed bee so it could come back to life.

I told him we needed to write this new twist into the story, only for this part he would draw the picture and then tell me what to write. This time he accepted my suggestion that he start with a black crayon “since bees are BLACK and yellow” and you can see what he dictated for the end of the story. And then we went back to role playing. Again?? Again!!

Tama wished to continue the game again today, but role playing was complicated when Kamu the dog jumped into the act. Upset by my pretending to cry after stepping on the bee, Kamu began barking wildly and trying to come to my rescue. So we all took a break from role playing to spread honey on crackers and eat them. “This honey comes from real bees??” This kid is fascinating and fun, and he leaves Grandma tuckered out by end of day.

#5. Tama’s first soccer game today! Fun, hilarious, and as young as these kids are, they were actually kinda playing soccer. There was, of course, some running and kicking in the wrong direction, lots of falling down, moments of loss of focus due to waving at their fans (us) , and frequent spontaneous hugging during the game. When their patient coach got them in a huddle, there was always one or more kids looking in the opposite direction or otherwise distracted. And then there was the post game cheer fortheir team “Golden Cheetahs!” (a name they voted on) followed by the sportsmanship-like high five line with the other team.

And last of all, there is Snack! (yup, classic spam musubi +). Tama (#2) scored 2 goals, one of them due to teammates passing him the ball! I’m not even sure which team won, but good job, Golden Cheetahs! Good fun!

#6. As I drove Tama to daycare today, it was such a beautiful morning that I broke into song: “Oh, what a beautiful morning!…” I told Tama that I used to sing that song with my Mommy. ”Is she in Heaven?” Yes, Tama. “Do you miss her?”. Yes, Tama. “Does she walk?”(I suppose he wondered if she could walk in Heaven) “I don’t know Tama”. “When you get very very old and go to Heaven, you can see her again”. Then he went on to talk about when his Mommy is a grandma, and he is a Daddy will I be here? and where will he live? can he live with his Mommy and Daddy then? Yup, and all this deep talk is going on before 7:30 am! — Photo is Tama’s great grandma Lib in 2013 holding her 1951 wedding dress.