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Welcome to Solidarity Saturday, your weekly highlight reel and shortcut to staying plugged in.
The growing number of lives lost to ICE enforcement across the country, including a 25-year-old man killed in Maine this week, weighs on all of us. This isn’t happening in a vacuum, and it isn’t stopping at people’s front doors. Communities everywhere are having to figure out how to keep each other safe, and workplaces are no exception.
Unionized baristas at a Minneapolis Starbucks raised concerns directly with their manager after ICE agents showed up at their store, and union baristas in Chicago took a public stand to demand safer stores too. Plenty of other businesses have already chosen to keep enforcement out of their spaces because safety and trust matter, while Starbucks has stayed silent.
While we wait, here’s this week’s brew:
Silica in the New Blended Refreshers
Our union is hearing concerns from baristas about an ingredient in the new Starbucks Blended Refreshers. The blending powder is silica-based and becomes airborne easily. This needs to be addressed immediately, before it potentially puts workers’ health at risk. Your safety isn’t optional, and neither is Starbucks’ responsibility to protect you.
Edina, MN Baristas Vote Union Yes
Congrats to the newly unionized baristas in Edina, MN, who just joined 16 other Minnesota Starbucks stores in Starbucks Workers United! Shift supervisor Kaye-Lani Story summed it up best: this is only the beginning.
Starbucks Korea Forms First-Ever Labor Union
South Korea’s largest coffee franchise just saw the formation of its first labor union since entering the domestic market in 1999. Welcome to the fight, Korea baristas! Read more here.
Stay loud, stay in solidarity, and thanks for being here with us!
In solidarity,
Starbucks Workers United
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