I have to say that Starbucks deserves to be raked over hot coals for this incident.

Kati Moore filed a lawsuit against Starbucks in 2007 because of the company’s failure to act when she told her manager about the abuse she was going through.  She is rightfully suing for monetary damages due to Starbucks’ failure to comply with the law when her superiors in the company obtained knowledge of sexual assault between a minor and an adult, as well as a worker and a boss.

At the young age of 16, Kati was introduced to the workforce with her first job as a barista at a Starbucks in Orange County, CA.  She was quickly taken advantage of by her then-24-year-old, Shift Supervisor, Tim Horton.  Horton coerced Kati into a sexually abusive relationship.  As the situation worsened, Kati bravely sought help by disclosing the abuse to her assistant store manager.

This gets even worse.

When the company got word that Kati’s story–which has been public knowledge for years–would be aired on national television, Starbucks issued several company-wide memos that reeked of lies and deception.  The most disgusting assertion the company made was that what happened was a “consensual relationship.”  This statement is not only false in more ways than one, but de-criminalizes the actions of Tim Horton and re-victimizes the experience of Kati Moore and others that have experienced sexual abuse.

From the Starbucks Union:

We are looking for current and former Starbucks employees who have been interrogated by Partner & Asset Protection. There is mounting evidence that Starbucks' use of harsh police-style interrogation tactics has lead to numerous false confessions, which Starbucks has then used to terminate or extort 'restitution' from employees.  If this has happened to you or you know of such an incident please contact starbucksunion@yahoo.com. We are particularly interested in hearing from victims of interrogations in Northern California. We are gathering testimonials from impacted workers to prepare a potential class action lawsuit against the company. Your inquiry will remain confidential.

Posted via email from Jason’s posterous

The IWW Starbucks Union has been fighting Starbucks for a very long time now. I’m glad to see that Brave New Films has joined in on the fight.

After trying to organize a Starbucks union at his Mall of America branch store, Erik Foreman was fired by his district manager. In response, Foreman filed a complaint against the coffee company stating they violated the National Labor Relations Act. Foreman’s complaint and many others have underscored Starbucks claim of social consciousness and brought another high-profile player into the debate on the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Read more about the campaign to stop starbucks here.

–Gabriela Resto-Montero

Brave New Films has set up a website for their campaign called Stop Starbucks. They’ve taken on Wal-Mart so why not go after the nation’s largest coffee chain?

I’d also like to go back and highlight a letter written by the Starbucks Union on their fifth anniversary.

While Starbucks used the economic crisis as a pretext for an all-out assault on our already meager standard of living, our struggle gained momentum this year amidst a stark decline of the company’s brand and widespread store closures. Baristas around the country and around the world made the decision to organize and fight back against severe cuts in work hours, chronic under staffing, and a new "Optimal Scheduling" program which forces many workers to be available to Starbucks for over 80 hours a week without being guaranteed a single work hour.

Looks like Starbucks (@starbucks on Twitter) is going to get a lot more press on their anti-worker tactics whether they like it or not.

They say the termination was for being out of compliance with a Starbucks policy. Yet considering what happened not too long ago with Joe Tessone confronting the Starbucks’ CEO. I find the excuse given by Starbucks for the termination not credible.

The Starbucks Coffee Co. informed outspoken union member and barista, Joe Tessone, yesterday that it was laying him off, just two weeks after he confronted CEO Howard Schultz over the company’s squeezing of employees. Mr. Tessone’s blog post on the encounter entitled, “Howard the Coward: The Day My Boss Ran Away” quickly became an Internet hit among fast food workers and their supporters (online at: http://www.iww.org/en/node/4618).

"When I heard Howard Schultz was in town, I knew I had to get to the store and make my voice heard as a barista and union member," said Tessone, a 4 ½ year veteran of the company with an excellent performance record. "He said he’d speak to me after his interview with the Wall Street Journal only to scurry through the emergency exit the first chance he got. I told Schultz that it was time to dialogue with union baristas and that too many of us we’re living in poverty but he showed nothing but cowardice."

The Starbucks Union is pursuing legal action against the corporation.

I first learned about direct action after reading about the IWW Starbucks Union a few years back. I learned that the Starbucks Union was thwarted in 2004 in an attempt to organize some stores in Manhattan. So after that the Starbucks Union decided to organize using the direct action model. Since then they’ve done great work.

Founded in 1905, the IWW has a colorful history of workplace agitation. The “Wobblies,” as they were known, included prominent labor leaders such as Eugene Debs, Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, and William “Big Bill” Haywood. Their goal was to bring all workers into “One Big Union” and ultimately to abolish the wage labor system. Rather than try to negotiate with companies through contract bargaining or support political candidates, the IWW engages in what Gross and others call “direct action.” It pressures companies like Starbucks by assaulting their public image, picketing stores, and organizing Internet campaigns.

The SWU is especially keen on tarnishing Starbucks’ image as a “socially responsible” company. Gross says Starbucks has a systematic problem with low wages, irregular working hours, and a lack of reliable health care. One statistic the union likes to point to is that only 42% of Starbucks workers use its health-care plan—even lower than the rate at Wal-Mart. Starbucks maintains that it pays competitive wages and is among the first large employers to offer health insurance to part-time employees, who make up 100% of its workforce.

In David Sirota’s book The Uprising there is a statistic that says up to 27 percent of a corporation’s stock price is attributable to intangibles like a corporation’s reputation, this is what makes direct action an excellent model. When corporations take away every other attempt to organize throurgh the NLRB, direct actioin is the last resort. Even when you get a union established through an election, direct action is still an important tool. I think SEIU has been effective using direct action in their campaigns as well as the CIW which isn’t a union but a community-based worker organization. I expect to see more high profile direct action campaigns waged in 2009. Bring it on!