SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
People march in the middle of East Pine Street during the "Fight Starbucks' Union Busting" rally and march in Seattle, Washington on April 23, 2022. (Photo: Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)
Overcoming increasingly aggressive opposition from the company's management, workers at more than 30 Starbucks locations across the U.S. have now voted to unionize as the wave of organizing spurred by historic wins in Buffalo just four months ago continues to mount.
On Monday, workers at a Starbucks shop in the township of Hopewell, New Jersey voted unanimously to unionize and join Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. The store was the 30th Starbucks location to unionize in the U.S. and the first in New Jersey.
"Howard Schultz's big anti-union campaign seems like a dud that's backfiring."
"We are incredibly proud of the brave and strong Starbucks workers who voted to join Workers United," Lynne Fox, the international president of the union, said in a statement. "Our collective success in Hopewell today reflects the power that working people have to demand positive changes from their employers."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who rallied with Starbucks workers in Virginia over the weekend, congratulated the Hopewell employees and said that "workers' efforts to demand dignity on the job have been an enormous inspiration to working-class people from coast to coast."
The Hopewell victory was followed by a union win in Baltimore--the first Starbucks location in Maryland to unionize--and announcements from several more shops in California, Washington state, and Texas that they intend to join the rapidly spreading movement.
The growing momentum comes as Starbucks management, led by billionaire CEO Howard Schultz, is working to ramp up a union-busting campaign that has already resulted in several lawsuits from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). On Friday, the NLRB sued the coffee corporation for unlawfully retaliating against three union organizers in Phoenix, Arizona.
"Among other things," the NLRB alleged, "Starbucks disciplined, suspended, and discharged one employee, constructively discharged another, and placed a third on an unpaid leave of absence after revoking recently granted accommodations."
Related Content
Nevertheless, Starbucks organizing continues to gain steam as workers at the e-commerce behemoth Amazon are also attempting to unionize a second Staten Island warehouse--efforts that advocates hope will galvanize a labor movement that has suffered for decades amid corporate America's concerted offensive.
Last week, after Schultz said that Starbucks and other U.S. companies are "being assaulted" by "the threat of unionization," five Starbucks locations in Richmond, Virginia voted to form a union by a combined margin of 82-14.
"This is just the beginning and we are not going to let a corporation silence our voices."
"This five-for-five yes vote shows that Richmond is a union town, and this is just the beginning and we are not going to let a corporation silence our voices," Starbucks employee Jillian O'Hare told the local Richmond Times-Dispatch. "We are not going to let billionaire union-busters stand in our way."
Longtime labor journalist Steven Greenhouse tweeted Monday that "Howard Schultz's big anti-union campaign seems like a dud that's backfiring." Starbucks has hired the notorious anti-union law firm Littler Mendelson to assist its push to blunt worker organizing, which Schultz has tried to portray as a scheme led by an "outside" group.
"After Starbucks management keeps losing so badly in union vote after union vote, one would think Howard Schultz would decide, 'Hey, our anti-union campaign isn't working. Let's drop it,'" Greenhouse wrote. "But Schultz evidently plans to double down on his anti-union push and make things more divisive."
Starbucks workers who have voted to unionize in pursuit of better pay, benefits, and conditions now face the arduous task of negotiating a contract with a hostile employer--a process that can take years.
An Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study published in 2009 found that "within one year after the election, only 48% of organized units have collective bargaining agreements."
"By two years it increases to 63% and by three years to 70%," EPI noted. "Only after more than three years will 75% have obtained a first agreement."
During a rally in Virginia on Sunday, Sanders said to cheers that "our demand right now is to tell Mr. Schultz and the people who run Starbucks: stop the anti-union activities, stop bringing people into backrooms, stop threatening people, stop intimidating people."
"And, equally important," the Vermont senator added, "start negotiating a first contract with those shops that have voted to form a union.
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
Overcoming increasingly aggressive opposition from the company's management, workers at more than 30 Starbucks locations across the U.S. have now voted to unionize as the wave of organizing spurred by historic wins in Buffalo just four months ago continues to mount.
On Monday, workers at a Starbucks shop in the township of Hopewell, New Jersey voted unanimously to unionize and join Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. The store was the 30th Starbucks location to unionize in the U.S. and the first in New Jersey.
"Howard Schultz's big anti-union campaign seems like a dud that's backfiring."
"We are incredibly proud of the brave and strong Starbucks workers who voted to join Workers United," Lynne Fox, the international president of the union, said in a statement. "Our collective success in Hopewell today reflects the power that working people have to demand positive changes from their employers."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who rallied with Starbucks workers in Virginia over the weekend, congratulated the Hopewell employees and said that "workers' efforts to demand dignity on the job have been an enormous inspiration to working-class people from coast to coast."
The Hopewell victory was followed by a union win in Baltimore--the first Starbucks location in Maryland to unionize--and announcements from several more shops in California, Washington state, and Texas that they intend to join the rapidly spreading movement.
The growing momentum comes as Starbucks management, led by billionaire CEO Howard Schultz, is working to ramp up a union-busting campaign that has already resulted in several lawsuits from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). On Friday, the NLRB sued the coffee corporation for unlawfully retaliating against three union organizers in Phoenix, Arizona.
"Among other things," the NLRB alleged, "Starbucks disciplined, suspended, and discharged one employee, constructively discharged another, and placed a third on an unpaid leave of absence after revoking recently granted accommodations."
Related Content
Nevertheless, Starbucks organizing continues to gain steam as workers at the e-commerce behemoth Amazon are also attempting to unionize a second Staten Island warehouse--efforts that advocates hope will galvanize a labor movement that has suffered for decades amid corporate America's concerted offensive.
Last week, after Schultz said that Starbucks and other U.S. companies are "being assaulted" by "the threat of unionization," five Starbucks locations in Richmond, Virginia voted to form a union by a combined margin of 82-14.
"This is just the beginning and we are not going to let a corporation silence our voices."
"This five-for-five yes vote shows that Richmond is a union town, and this is just the beginning and we are not going to let a corporation silence our voices," Starbucks employee Jillian O'Hare told the local Richmond Times-Dispatch. "We are not going to let billionaire union-busters stand in our way."
Longtime labor journalist Steven Greenhouse tweeted Monday that "Howard Schultz's big anti-union campaign seems like a dud that's backfiring." Starbucks has hired the notorious anti-union law firm Littler Mendelson to assist its push to blunt worker organizing, which Schultz has tried to portray as a scheme led by an "outside" group.
"After Starbucks management keeps losing so badly in union vote after union vote, one would think Howard Schultz would decide, 'Hey, our anti-union campaign isn't working. Let's drop it,'" Greenhouse wrote. "But Schultz evidently plans to double down on his anti-union push and make things more divisive."
Starbucks workers who have voted to unionize in pursuit of better pay, benefits, and conditions now face the arduous task of negotiating a contract with a hostile employer--a process that can take years.
An Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study published in 2009 found that "within one year after the election, only 48% of organized units have collective bargaining agreements."
"By two years it increases to 63% and by three years to 70%," EPI noted. "Only after more than three years will 75% have obtained a first agreement."
During a rally in Virginia on Sunday, Sanders said to cheers that "our demand right now is to tell Mr. Schultz and the people who run Starbucks: stop the anti-union activities, stop bringing people into backrooms, stop threatening people, stop intimidating people."
"And, equally important," the Vermont senator added, "start negotiating a first contract with those shops that have voted to form a union.
Overcoming increasingly aggressive opposition from the company's management, workers at more than 30 Starbucks locations across the U.S. have now voted to unionize as the wave of organizing spurred by historic wins in Buffalo just four months ago continues to mount.
On Monday, workers at a Starbucks shop in the township of Hopewell, New Jersey voted unanimously to unionize and join Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. The store was the 30th Starbucks location to unionize in the U.S. and the first in New Jersey.
"Howard Schultz's big anti-union campaign seems like a dud that's backfiring."
"We are incredibly proud of the brave and strong Starbucks workers who voted to join Workers United," Lynne Fox, the international president of the union, said in a statement. "Our collective success in Hopewell today reflects the power that working people have to demand positive changes from their employers."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who rallied with Starbucks workers in Virginia over the weekend, congratulated the Hopewell employees and said that "workers' efforts to demand dignity on the job have been an enormous inspiration to working-class people from coast to coast."
The Hopewell victory was followed by a union win in Baltimore--the first Starbucks location in Maryland to unionize--and announcements from several more shops in California, Washington state, and Texas that they intend to join the rapidly spreading movement.
The growing momentum comes as Starbucks management, led by billionaire CEO Howard Schultz, is working to ramp up a union-busting campaign that has already resulted in several lawsuits from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). On Friday, the NLRB sued the coffee corporation for unlawfully retaliating against three union organizers in Phoenix, Arizona.
"Among other things," the NLRB alleged, "Starbucks disciplined, suspended, and discharged one employee, constructively discharged another, and placed a third on an unpaid leave of absence after revoking recently granted accommodations."
Related Content
Nevertheless, Starbucks organizing continues to gain steam as workers at the e-commerce behemoth Amazon are also attempting to unionize a second Staten Island warehouse--efforts that advocates hope will galvanize a labor movement that has suffered for decades amid corporate America's concerted offensive.
Last week, after Schultz said that Starbucks and other U.S. companies are "being assaulted" by "the threat of unionization," five Starbucks locations in Richmond, Virginia voted to form a union by a combined margin of 82-14.
"This is just the beginning and we are not going to let a corporation silence our voices."
"This five-for-five yes vote shows that Richmond is a union town, and this is just the beginning and we are not going to let a corporation silence our voices," Starbucks employee Jillian O'Hare told the local Richmond Times-Dispatch. "We are not going to let billionaire union-busters stand in our way."
Longtime labor journalist Steven Greenhouse tweeted Monday that "Howard Schultz's big anti-union campaign seems like a dud that's backfiring." Starbucks has hired the notorious anti-union law firm Littler Mendelson to assist its push to blunt worker organizing, which Schultz has tried to portray as a scheme led by an "outside" group.
"After Starbucks management keeps losing so badly in union vote after union vote, one would think Howard Schultz would decide, 'Hey, our anti-union campaign isn't working. Let's drop it,'" Greenhouse wrote. "But Schultz evidently plans to double down on his anti-union push and make things more divisive."
Starbucks workers who have voted to unionize in pursuit of better pay, benefits, and conditions now face the arduous task of negotiating a contract with a hostile employer--a process that can take years.
An Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study published in 2009 found that "within one year after the election, only 48% of organized units have collective bargaining agreements."
"By two years it increases to 63% and by three years to 70%," EPI noted. "Only after more than three years will 75% have obtained a first agreement."
During a rally in Virginia on Sunday, Sanders said to cheers that "our demand right now is to tell Mr. Schultz and the people who run Starbucks: stop the anti-union activities, stop bringing people into backrooms, stop threatening people, stop intimidating people."
"And, equally important," the Vermont senator added, "start negotiating a first contract with those shops that have voted to form a union.
Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, called the Trump administration's open defiance of federal court orders "a real slippery slope to a different kind of country."
An attorney representing immigrants facing possible deportation under President Donald Trump's lawless use of the Alien Enemies Act warned Monday that the United States is on the verge of a constitutional crisis, with the administration openly defying and seeking to oust a federal judge who sought to bar the removal of Venezuelans accused without due process of being gang members.
Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said during a court hearing Monday that "there has been a lot of talk the last couple of weeks about a constitutional crisis."
"I think we're getting very close to that," Gelernt said as the Trump Justice Department formally requested the removal of U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, from the case involving the administration's invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which plainly states it can only be used in the context of a declared war.
Speaking to reporters following Monday's hearing, Gelernt noted that the 1798 law had only previously been used three times in U.S. history—"all during declared wars."
"The president is simply thumbing his nose at Congress," said Gelernt. "The administration has not only invoked the act in an unprecedented and lawless way, but they have refused to give individuals the opportunity to show that they're not actually part of the [Tren de Aragua] gang."
"We don't know all of the individuals who have been removed so far because the government did it in secret," Gelernt added.
Deputy Director of @ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, Lee Gelernt says he thinks the U.S. is slipping closer and closer to a constitutional crisis saying the president is thumbing his nose at Congress when it comes to the removal of 261 Tren de Aragua #TdA and MS-13 members, “We… pic.twitter.com/39mjxCKidm
— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) March 17, 2025
At Monday's hearing, Boasberg gave the Trump administration until Tuesday afternoon to produce information on its decisionmaking in the wake of the judge's Saturday order barring the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador.
The administration claimed in a Monday filing that the court "lacks jurisdiction" over the president's authority under the Alien Enemies Act.
In his weekend order, Boasberg directed the administration to turn deportation planes around and halt planned flights, instructions that the administration defied. A New York Times examination of publicly available flight data showed that "none of the planes in question landed in El Salvador before the judge's order, and that one of them did not even leave American soil until after the judge's written order was posted online."
Politico reported that "at moments during the 45-minute hearing" on Monday, "the normally unflappable judge raised his voice, rejecting the Justice Department's contention that the government had an exceptionally urgent need to move the planes."
In public appearances and social media posts, Trump administration officials and allies of the president are embracing a fight with the judiciary and flaunting the White House's defiance of Boasberg's order—intensifying concerns of a constitutional emergency.
"We're not stopping," Tom Homan, Trump's immigration czar, said in a Fox News appearance on Monday. "I don't care what the judges think."
Responding to Homan's remarks, Gelernt told ABC News, "I almost don't know what to say to that."
"That is a really, really dangerous comment," he continued. "If the administration is going to openly defy the courts, then we are closing in on what people would call a constitutional crisis. Our country is based on the rule of law, the federal courts have always been able to say what the law is, and so this is a real separation of powers question."
Open defiance of the federal judiciary, Gelernt added, "is a real slippery slope to a different kind of country."
Robert Reich, the former U.S. labor secretary, wrote in a blog post on Monday that "many people wonder if we're in a 'constitutional crisis'" and noted that "definitions of that phrase vary considerably, as do opinions about whether we're in one now."
"My worry is that Trump is surrounded by extremist anti-democracy nihilists, including his vice president, who are encouraging him to defy the Supreme Court," Reich wrote. "If and when he does, we'll be in a constitutional crisis that should cause every American to take to the streets."
"This return to violence does not come as a surprise," said one advocacy group. "Netanyahu has, from the beginning, signaled his intention to abandon the cease-fire process before it could become a lasting peace."
A barrage of Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday killed more than 400 people and left a fragile cease-fire agreement in tatters just over two months after it was reached, with Israel's prime minister pledging "increasing military strength" in an enclave already decimated by more than a year of bombing.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the Netanyahu government consulted with the Trump administration ahead of the latest Gaza bombardment. Leavitt expressed the White House's total support for Israel's attacks.
While Israel had been carrying out more limited deadly attacks on Gaza despite the cease-fire deal—including strikes over the weekend that killed at least nine—Tuesday's bombings were described as the "heaviest assault on the territory since the cease-fire took effect in January."
The cease-fire was a multiphase agreement, with the first phase expiring earlier this month. Talks over the second phase of the agreement had stalled, and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had attempted to impose an alternative deal on Hamas with the backing of the Trump White House. Israel imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip earlier this month in an attempt to force acceptance of its alternative, leaving more than 1 million children in desperate conditions.
The New York Times reported that the Rafah crossing into Egypt "has been shuttered amid the renewed Israeli strikes." The border zone, the Times noted, "had been the main way for sick and wounded Gazans to leave the enclave during the cease-fire."
Muhannad Hadi, humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement Tuesday that the fresh wave of Israeli airstrikes "is unconscionable" and that a cease-fire "must be reinstated immediately."
"People in Gaza have endured unimaginable suffering," said Hadi. "An end to hostilities, sustained humanitarian assistance, release of the hostages, and the restoration of basic services and people’s livelihoods, are the only way forward."
"From before his first day in office, President Trump has endorsed the Netanyahu government's return to war."
Gaza health officials said the Israeli strikes killed at least 400 people, including women and children. Reuters reported that "in hospitals strained by 15 months of bombardment, piles of bodies in white plastic sheets smeared with blood could be seen stacked up as casualties were brought in."
Netanyahu's office said in a statement posted to social media that the Israeli military launched the large-scale strikes due to Hamas' "repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from U.S. Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators."
Hamas responded that Israel is "fully responsible for violating and overturning the agreement."
The Israeli strikes came over a month after the Trump administration approved a $7.4 billion sale of U.S. weaponry to Israel, which has repeatedly used American arms to commit war crimes in Gaza.
Sara Haghdoosti, executive director of the U.S.-based advocacy group Win Without War, said in a statement that "we are heartbroken and enraged at the Netanyahu government's decision to break the cease-fire in Gaza and resume widespread, devastating bombing."
"This return to violence does not come as a surprise, however," said Haghdoosti. "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, from the beginning, signaled his intention to abandon the cease-fire process before it could become a lasting peace. From before his first day in office, President Trump has endorsed the Netanyahu government's return to war. Indeed, we fear that Trump's vile plan for ethnic cleansing in Gaza, so welcomed by the far-right members of Netanyahu's government, will become the blueprint for the war as it goes forward."
"Both the blockade and the return to bombing appear designed to create conditions in which Palestinians can no longer live in the Gaza Strip," Haghdoosti added. "We, and every person of conscience around the world, condemn this campaign of ethnic cleansing unequivocally."
"The First Amendment does not come with a 'Palestine Exception,'" said the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which filed the suit.
A lawsuit filed Saturday on behalf of two Cornell University graduates students and one professor at the Ivy League school in Upstate New York is challenging what plaintiffs are calling "the Trump administration's unconstitutional campaign against free speech—particularly as it targets international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinian rights."
"The lawsuit seeks a nationwide injunction of executive orders used by the administration to target and deport international students advocating for Palestinian freedom, rights, and liberation under the guise of protecting national security," explained the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which sued on behalf of Ph.D. students Momodou Taal and Sriram Parasurama and professor Mukoma Wa Ngũgĩ.
Taal, a British-Gambian national, is facing possible deportation for his pro-Palestine activism on campus. Parasurama was arrested last October for protesting Israel's annihilation of Gaza at a career fair and was subsequently de-enrolled from Cornell and banned from the university's campus in Ithaca, New York for three years. Wa Ngũgĩ is a professor of literature who works with Taal. Parasurama and Wa Ngũgĩ are U.S. citizens.
"Defendants' attempt to bar non-citizens from criticizing the U.S. government, its institutions, American culture, or the government of Israel—and to prohibit citizens from hearing those views—serves no legitimate government interest in preventing terrorism or enforcing immigration laws," the lawsuit states. "The justifications offered are pretextual and dangerous. Criticism of the U.S. government does not constitute terrorism, and criticism of the Israeli government is not antisemitism."
Taal said in a statement that "the U.S. government claims to be zealous about free speech—except when it comes to Palestine."
"We've been here before: McCarthyism to civil rights to Vietnam, times when this country has deviated from its stated commitments to free speech," he continued. "This is another generational moment, another hour of reckoning. Why is there a Palestine exception?"
"Only in a dictatorship can the leader jail and banish political opponents for criticizing his administration" Taal added. "A nationwide injunction is therefore necessary while the court considers the merits."
Parasurama said: "These draconian executive orders aim to crack down on those willing to protest against our country's active role in the genocide of the Palestinian people. They are part of a broader moral crisis our nation is grappling with. This lawsuit allows us to recover our basic rights and protect international students like Momodou Taal."
Wa Ngũgĩ said that "I was born in the U.S. but grew up under the [Daniel arap] Moi dictatorship in Kenya in the 1980s. Students and people of conscience in Kenya were being detained, tortured, exiled or killed. My own family experienced the full brunt of this oppressive society. When I moved back to the U.S. in the early 1990s I could not foresee this attempt to chill free speech and directly attack our universities."
The Trump administration has invoked the president's January executive order authorizing the arrest, detention, and deportation of noncitizen students and others who took part in protests against Israel's assault on Gaza, which has left more than 170,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and around 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened, according to local and international agencies. Israel's conduct in the war is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case brought by South Africa.
Last week, immigration authorities arrested Mahmoud Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent who helped Gaza protests at Columbia University while he was a graduate student there. Trump called Khalil's detention "the first arrest of many to come."
Pro-Israel activists played a role in Khalil's arrest. Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia who was temporarily banned from campus last year after harassing university employees, and Columbia student David Lederer have waged what Khalil called "a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign" against him and other activists. The group Canary Mission last week released a video naming five other international students it says are "linked to campus extremism at Columbia."
The Department of Justice announced Friday that it is investigating whether pro-Palestinian demonstrators at over 60 colleges and universities including Columbia and Cornell violated federal anti-terrorism laws.
On Monday, ADC legal director and case co-counsel Chris Godshall-Bennett said that "this is one of those times people will look back on and ask what we did."
"We will not stand idly by while the government disappears its political opponents," he continued. "My family fled European antisemitism and came to the United States where our Constitution protects us from tyranny. My Jewish identity won't be used as an excuse to persecute the Palestinian people and its allies without a fight."
"This is one of those times people will look back on and ask what we did."
"Through this litigation, we seek both immediate and long-term relief to protect non-citizens from deportation and citizens from prosecution based on their constitutionally protected speech," Godshall-Bennett added.
Lead plaintiffs' counsel Eric Lee said that "this lawsuit aims to vindicate the rights of all non-citizens and citizens in the U.S., but the courthouse is only one arena in this fight."
"We appeal to the population: Stand up and exercise your First Amendment rights by actively and vigorously opposing the danger of dictatorship," Lee added. "As we prepare to mark the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution next year, recall the words from the Declaration of Independence: 'That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.'"
Pro-Palestine demonstrations continue at Cornell and on campuses across the nation and around the world. Last week, 17 activists led by the group Students for Justice in Palestine were
detained by police after interrupting a Cornell panel on the history of the so-called Israel-Palestine "conflict," whose members included former Israeli foreign minister and alleged war criminal Tzipi Livni.