Starbucks Pays Up After Decades of Union Busting, Media Calls It 'Settlement'
Starbucks' agreement to pay $38.9 million to NYC workers for labor violations, widely reported by outlets like The Independent, sounds almost magnanimous. Yet, this tidy sum follows decades of alleged aggressive anti-union tactics—a playbook that includes firing organizers, closing pro-union stores, and surveilling employees. (The National Labor Relations Board, NLRB, has issued numerous
complaints over the years outlining these patterns.) This 'settlement' isn't a gesture of goodwill; it's a cost of doing business, likely dwarfed by the profits protected through years of stifling labor organization. One might wonder why it takes years of legal battles and a nationwide strike to compel a multi-billion dollar corporation to adhere to basic labor laws. Is 'labor violation' just
another line item in the budget, less impactful than the cost of a quarterly earnings call? Perhaps the media could explore the systemic issues that allow such corporations to operate with impunity until forced to reluctantly open their wallets.