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Union badges at the Starbucks outlet in Buffalo, New York
STARBUCKS workers have filed charges with the National Labour Relations Board after the global coffee giant announced a pay rise that would only be available to non-union employees.
The company announced the package earlier this week along with a staff-training programme, but said unionised stores and those that have filed for recognition would be excluded.
Chief executive Howard Schultz, who recently returned for a third term at the helm, told investors that spending would come close to $1 billion for the fiscal year and would help Starbucks deal with increased demand.
Organised workers at the notoriously anti-union global giant are scoring victory after victory, and now international bodies are pitching in to finally force this figurehead of corporate capitalism to give in to unionisation, writes EMILIO AVELAR
It is only trade union power at work that will materially improve the lot of working people as a class but without sector-wide collective bargaining and a right to take sympathetic strike action, we are hamstrung in the fight to tilt back the balance of power, argues ADRIAN WEIR
BFAWU general secretary SARAH WOOLLEY highlights a catalogue of health and safety failings at the Mowi fish processing plant in Fife