IWW Anti-Starbucks Rally on MLK Day
On a bristly January 19, the RMO performed at an outdoor rally with unionized Starbucks workers. In what is quickly becoming an annual tradition, the Starbucks Workers Union is demanding that Starbucks compensate their employees at the time-and-a-half rate on MLK Day.
Unlike the government and many private employers, Starbucks refuses to honor Martin Luther King’s legacy by paying their workers a holiday bonus. While the company claims to “embrace diversity”, it effectively demotes MLK Day to second-class status by treating it as inferior to five other federal holidays. As workers picketed the Starbucks regional headquarters in midtown, the RMO belted out its best protest tunes, much to the rancor of managers at the adjacent Starbucks coffeshop.
The Starbucks Union is affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) — a century old union known for organizing immigrant, transient, and low-wage workers. After the Starbucks rally, workers marched across town to Wild Edibles — a wholesale seafood market that has come under fire for firing a group of IWW members as they tried to unionized. The RMO and the IWW called upon Wild Edibles owner Richard Martin to stop union-busting, rehire fired workers, and settle his ongoing labor dispute with the workers. Workers chanted “What’s Disgusting? Union Busting!” as the RMO played along. The owner hunkered down inside his shop, refusing to confront the mayhem just outside his door, as potential customers fled in disgust. Another successful day of action for the RMO.
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