Starbucks Found Guilty Students Occupy Day Hall

By JULIA SENZON and JONATHAN MONG Sun News Editors

This article was originally published May 12. Continued from above.

Organizers discussed expanding the number of locations offering Gimme! Coffee — which is currently sold at Bill and Melinda Gates Hall and in three other Ithaca locations. According to Wilson, Gimme! Coffee is ideal due to being a local, unionized worker-run co-op. On Tuesday, organizers offered free Gimme! Coffee in front of Starbucks stores and campus dining establishments selling Starbucks products while discussing their cause and asking for optional donations, which ultimately raised over $700 in support of the strike.

To Wilson, specifically targeting Cornell’s relationship with Starbucks — rather than Starbucks as a whole — is a way to leverage the organizers’ authority as students of the University.

“You can’t negotiate with Starbucks — that’s a boardroom full of multinational executives who won’t listen to us,” Wilson said. “Where power is, is we have this affiliation with the University [as students], and we have the ability to democratically rise up and say, ‘This is what we demand.’”

Wilson noted that organizers believe Starbucks is making a profit of millions of dollars through its relationship with Cornell, but this contract is not currently public. In turn, disrupting the agreement between Cornell and Starbucks is a way for organizers to demonstrate to the corporation that there are economic consequences to what they consider to be a national union-busting campaign.

Prior to the occupation of Day Hall, orga- nizers urged Cornell students to send over 900 emails to the University demanding that they sever all University ties to Cornell, although Ryan Lombardi, vice president of student and campus life, denied receiving an email until 30 minutes prior to his and Dean of Students Marla Love’s initial arrival in the lobby of Day Hall shortly before 5 p.m., where students had already been gathered for hours.

“The President wants to engage with you in good faith and talk about this,” Lombardi said. “[We] can’t make a commitment today to honor the demands that you’ve brought forward — we just haven’t had time to look at all the ramifications and implications of that. We know that some emails were sent this week. I got my first 30 minutes ago.”

Lombardi then called into question the veracity of some of the emails, saying they were generic and did not appear to come from Cornellians, but Wilson refuted the accusation, saying students had endorsed the sending of each message.

Following this exchange, Lombardi and Wilson began discussing the policy demands made by the demonstrators. Lombardi said President Pollack was out of town and accused the demonstrators of negotiating in bad faith with the administration.

“I’m willing to make that commitment to have this dialogue and try to figure something out — see what we can come up with,” Lombardi said. “But I cannot make this commitment today that you’re asking us to make. And I think it’s unreasonable to ask us to make that on the spot. That’s not giving us a fair chance to really look at all the implications.”

To continue reading this article, please visit www. cornellsun.com.

By JULIA SENZON and GABRIEL MUÑOZ Sun News Editor and

This article was originally published July 7. Continued from above.

He also described that the company showed anti-union bias by cutting operating hours at stores, telling employees that the Collegetown location would permanently close before an official decision was made and failing to negotiate with Starbucks Workers United — the union representing Ithaca’s Starbucks employees.

“Starbucks violates the Act when it prioritizes bringing stores up to standards through employee discipline in response to union organizing,” Amchan wrote. “There is no showing herein that Starbucks would have paid the attention it did to the Ithaca stores and its employees absent its awareness of union organizing.”

Amchan emphasized the wider effect of the treatment of Ithaca employees on Starbucks workers nationwide.

“Given the wide-spread publicity given to union organizing at Starbucks stores and Starbucks’ response, employees at the 9,000+ Starbucks can only assume that they are risking their livelihood by organizing when they learn that Starbucks closed a store like College Avenue and got rid of almost all its employees either before or after the store closed,” Amchan wrote.

As part of his ruling, Amchan required Starbucks to reopen the College Avenue location and reinstate terminated employees with payback. The corporation would also have to remove any reference to the unlawful dismissal and penalties given to eleven former employees from their files.

Starbucks also would be required to agree to bargaining agreements with Starbucks Workers United regarding the Ithaca locations. He also ordered Starbucks to post a notice about working rights in all locations nationwide in addition to distributing the information electronically.

Starbucks told Bloomberg on Thursday that the company intends to appeal the decision.

“Where claims have been filed against Starbucks that we believe are unfounded, we continue to defend the company and the rights of our partners as matters are fully adjudicated by the NLRB and federal courts,” a Starbucks spokesperson said in an email to The Sun. “We strongly disagree with the administrative law judge’s recommendations issued and intend to file exceptions contesting the findings and recommendations made.”

Starbucks’ statement also stated that the company’s policies are set to facilitate a hospitable and safe atmosphere for partners and customers and to outlaw anti-unionization practices. According to the statement, Starbucks established a management training program and instituted a labor relations team in the fall to support the company’s compliance with both company policies and labor laws.

“We respect the right of all partners to make their own decisions about union representation, and we are committed to engaging in good faith collective bargaining for each store where a union has been appropriately certified following a representation election,” the statement said.

To continue reading this article, please visit www. cornellsun.com.