Hours after Mayor Bruce Harrell conceded Seattle’s mayoral race, Mayor-elect Katie Wilson joined Starbucks baristas and allied labor groups at a rally Thursday, pledging to boycott the company until workers secure a contract.
Dozens of workers and supporters gathered around 4 p.m. in front of the closed Starbucks Reserve Roastery on Pike Street, chanting in the drizzly rain and waving picket signs as Wilson took to the stage. She told the crowd she was proud to stand with baristas in solidarity.
“The baristas have shared that the best way to show our support is not to buy Starbucks in solidarity,” Wilson said. “Together, we can send a powerful message: no contract, no coffee.”
She closed with a message for the company: “This is your hometown and mine. Seattle’s making some changes right now, and I urge you to do the right thing.”
Workers at 40 unionized Starbucks stores nationwide went on strike yesterday after over a year of stalled contract talks and ongoing unfair labor practices (ULPs). Starbucks Workers United said national contract bargaining began 18 months ago, but the company stopped offering new proposals altogether six months ago. And despite this, Starbucks kept rolling out new policies without bargaining for them. According to the National Labor Relations Board, the company has about700 unresolved ULP charges.
State Rep. Shaun Scott, a socialist whose district includes Capitol Hill, spoke to the crowd, framing the strike as part of a broader fight against corporate power in an increasingly unaffordable city.
“I hear so many people ask in the state legislature when we talk about taxing the ultra-wealthy,” Scott said. “‘If we make life too hard on major corporations in Washington state, what happens if they leave?’ I’m much more concerned about the working people that are going to be displaced because of low wages.”
Sofia Wagerman, a former Starbucks employee from California, told the crowd she was forced to leave Starbucks because she could no longer make ends meet, but that efforts to decertify their store failed “because of our solidarity and our power.”
In a statement yesterday, Starbucks Director of Global Communications Jaci Anderson said the company was disappointed that the union went on strike, and that “when the union is ready to come back to the bargaining table, we’re ready to talk.”
Can the mayor of a major city also be an activist? Usually a mayor has to have some level of diplomacy and an arms length distance because after all the economic stability of the city depends on the major employers continue to grow, hire and pay taxes. I’m glad Katie is going on all in and not even pretending that she cares about any of that. It should be interesting to see how Starbucks, Amazon, Weyerhaueser et al respond when she realizes she is going to need them to make a fraction of her wishes come true.
Fun fact, she’s not mayor yet 😉
@1: “Can the mayor of a major city also be an activist?”
It depends. MLK Day 2003 arrived during the run-up to W’s needless Charlie-foxtrot in Iraq, and we all marched to protest the impending war, just as MLK had opposed LBJ’s needless Charlie-foxtrot in Viet Nam. After the march, I went to my usual volunteer gig, at the office of Naral Pro-Choice Washington. A representative of the national organization was visiting. The visiting representative noted how Mayor Nickels had marched in the protest, and the head of the state organization replied, “Welcome to Seattle, where the Mayor leads the protest march.” (As indeed he had.)
Of course, pretty much everyone in King County and beyond had opposed W’s needless Charlie-foxtrot in Iraq. If the city is divided on what to do, like with homelessness, the housing crisis, income inequality, etc., then activism will appeal to only one half of the population. It’s hard to see getting everyone to consensus, if the mayor has already chosen one side.
Mayor-elect Katie Wilson has moxie!
I don’t see why a Mayor (let alone Mayor-elect) can’t be an activist, as long as they realize that their first responsibility is to manage the city in a responsible manner. Much like how people with normal jobs might also be an activist for one cause or another.
This one is a no-brainer: A Democratic mayor in a pro-labor town supporting a union protest. And Starbucks seems to have lost its way under this new CEO (who apparently commutes up from California?) so let ’em have it.
Just remember: if Wilson wants a chance to pass any of her agenda, her number one priority is managing the city. All the boring stuff like potholes, clean streets, low crime, etc. The rakes are all laid out. Every mayor steps on a few of them, but these rakes have extra-sharp tines. And Seattle voters are goofy. One poorly managed snowstorm, and you might as well pack your bags and wait by the door.
“This is your hometown and mine.”
Katie Wilson was raised in Binghamton, New York. She graduated High School there, and went on to flop out of Oxford six weeks before she was supposed to graduate. She moved to Seattle in 2004.
“This is your hometown and mine.”
Katie Wilson was raised in Binghamton, New York. She graduated in 2000 from Binghamton High School before going on to flop out of Oxford six weeks before she was scheduled to sit for the examinations in the final honours school for her degree. She moved to Seattle in 2004.
Binghamton, New York is her “hometown”.
@2: Yes, the operative word is “yet”
@5: “so let ’em have it.”
You seem nice.
Coolidge dear, I hate to break it to you, but corporations aren’t humans, and they don’t care about you.
“ Just remember: if Wilson wants a chance to pass any of her agenda, her number one priority is managing the city”
No, her number one priority is to increase revenue to fund her vision. To do that she’ll need to grow the tax base and that relies on employers increasing their footprint in the city. Being antagonistic towards them doesn’t seem like a good strategy but we’ll see how it plays out. Like I said I’m glad she is leaning into it so we can see the unfettered experiment. It’s one thing to advocate for basic policy like workers rights, it’s another to demonize a key member of the community over an ideological goal (there is no reality where being a barista justifies a Seattle living wage).
The newly created Knife commenter profile has two posts, each a near verbatim repost of a biped post it immediately follows (the other is in Friday’s news roundup.) They’re not even copy/paste posts, as there’s subtle differences in the biped/knife posts, though in terms of content & message, they’re completely indistinguishable. I can’t tell if biped thought creating a second profile in which he re-types everything he already said would somehow be a worthwhile expenditure of his time, or if someone else did.
Tim Walz may not have been able to ride his “Republicans Are Super Weird” campaign to victory last year, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t wholly accurate. My god, they’re fucking weird.
Maybe you should be really worried about it, blob
District13 dear, do stop being such a neurotic. The sky is not falling.
@14: No one said the sky is falling, dear. We’re merely noting that Mayor Wilson will need lots more tax money to deliver on her promises. IOW, just that boring governance stuff you mentioned @5.
@14 also we are in the online comments section of an alt newspaper in Seattle. I thought being in hysterics was the price of entry lol
I’ve always found that folks who wear tall head cushions are less fearful of the sky falling.