Starbucks is fighting unionization efforts at their stores and the company appears to
be willing to break the law to get there. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins joins me now talk about
this in many other issues. And the guy I say is honestly the best voice in progressive media. I
really do mean that. Thank you.
Everybody, I say it a lot, people I wanna make the point. You, you're really good at what you do.
Well, thank you. And, and so I appreciate
that. I, it's, it's a pleasure talking to you. I want to ask you about this. As I looked about it,
as I looked at this story, the most incredible thing that I found is that they've been down
this road before. We've seen big corporations get spanked for doing exactly what Amazon is doing. I
mean, yeah, well I say Amazon. Well, yeah.
Amazon's doing it. Starbucks is doing it. But I looked at this it's, it's their video,
the, the things they can't do. The employees can't take videos of their shop. They can't take photos.
We're gonna threaten their benefits. We're gonna threaten their pay raise.
We're going to, we're going to have surveillance.
We're gonna watch 'em with cameras and then we're gonna terminate 'em to set an example. All this
is Starbucks, it's Amazon all over, isn't it? Right. I mean that, that actually we have done
plenty of segments where Amazon was the carbon copy. They did everything you're mentioning here.
And now of course, Starbucks says, well, hey, Amazon had some success with it. Let's try it
ourselves. And so the National Labor Relations Board has hit them with this massive lawsuit,
alleging at least that we know of 200 instances of breaking federal labor laws. And a lot of it,
of course, does have to do with the retaliation against these employees. You know, firing anybody
who says, hey, what if we started a union? Starbucks immediately steps in and says, hey,
what if you didn't have a job here anymore? Yeah, exactly.
And, and even worse, last week it was revealed that Howard Schultz, the guy that runs Starbucks
said on a call, hey, we're gonna give everybody raises except the unionized workforce. We're not
giving them any new benefits, but I'm gonna take such good care of all my other non-union
employees, which of course that tactic illegal. And that is seen as a, a form of union busting
by, by not giving the benefits to everybody. Okay. So he, you know, his big talking point when
he put all this together, the whole Starbucks picture is we're partners. A, we're partners
and oh, by the way, we're one of the most progressive companies in the market. Really?
Progressive company. So, so progressive has a whole new meaning if I look at what this
guy did and I look what, what Bezos is doing with Amazon and so many of these tech companies. I mean
it, the tech companies plus this, it, it's the same, it's the same foundation every time we
see it. Look, people need to look if, if you're watching this and you're, you're, you're wondering
what rights do I have? The section seven of the, the NLRA tells you everything that you can and
can't do. And I think it's really important that people understand this kind of thing has digressed
to where you have Starbucks saying you can't even wear a pin on your, on your shirt
that talks about union. That says, I'm a member of a union or I want to, or please
start a union. You can't wear a pin like that. Well, no, you can't. But of course you can wear
your, you can wear your black lives matter pins. You can wear your, your rainbow pins because we're
progressive. Yeah.
And we care about only social issues on the surface. And that's how they
get away with this crap too, pretending to be progressive companies. They say, well, look,
look we're, we're letting you wear these buttons. We support the LGBT community.
Yeah. No, you don't. What you're doing is you're union
busting, you're corporate, you know, psychopaths. Yeah.
And that's all you care about is your bottom line. Bring your computer in, drink a latte and you're
gonna be among friends. Yeah.
All, everybody in here is your partner. It's just the biggest it's, it's just the biggest bunk I've,
that we, we see this so often now though, Farron. We do.
It's, it's like, it, it comes from progressive organizations. It comes from people who really
do wear that mantle, we're progressive for the very reasons that you point out. Yeah, we're
good on some social issues. But where it comes to you making money. Nah, we're not so progressive.