Dear Friend,
Today, all across the country, Starbucks workers are striking at over 100 stores, demanding that the company meet them at the bargaining table to negotiate over workplace issues such as chronic short staffing. They are courageously taking on a multi-billionaire dollar corporation to say enough is enough. It's time for Starbucks to treat its workers with dignity and respect.
Let me be very clear:
Over the past year, Starbucks Workers United has unionized 165 Starbucks stores in 36 states and Washington, D.C. Not only are Starbucks shops voting to unionize, they are voting pro-union in overwhelming numbers. Their grassroots organizing campaign has an incredible 82 percent win rate, and 59 unanimous union election wins.
Starbucks has responded with an unprecedented union busting campaign by firing over 130 union leaders, threatening and surveilling workers, refusing to bargain in good faith, and closing union stores. The National Labor Relations Board has already found merit in over 900 separate allegations of employer misconduct.
With Starbucks workers on strike nationwide, today is an important day to show that we stand in solidarity with them. Taking on a large corporation like Starbucks is not easy – but we can do it, as long as we're all in it together.
That's why I am asking you directly:
At a time of extreme and growing income and wealth inequality, the working class of this country is telling billionaires and large corporations that they cannot have it all. They are making it clear that we cannot continue to tolerate a system where the very rich get much richer while working families struggle to put food on the table and afford basic necessities.
All across this country, working people are courageously taking on corporate greed and coming together in solidarity to fight for decent wages, benefits, and working conditions. Workers are organizing and standing up for economic justice on the job in a way that we have not seen for years. This is what a grassroots political revolution is all about.
By going on strike today, Starbucks workers are taking on the billionaire who owns that company, Howard Schultz. They are standing together in solidarity to tell the billionaire class that they cannot have it all.
I've been proud to stand with Starbucks workers throughout their unionization efforts. Because in my view, there is no way we can transform this country in a progressive direction without a strong trade union movement.
So today I am once again asking you to do something important to show you stand in solidarity with Starbucks workers organizing for better wages and working conditions.
We cannot have a moral society or a strong economy when so few have so much, and so many have so little. And right now, our movement has an important role to play in elevating worker struggles nationwide – including standing with Starbucks workers.
Thank you for making a contribution to the Starbucks Workers Fund today, if you can afford it.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
Paid for by Friends of Bernie Sanders
PO BOX 391, Burlington, VT 05402
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