Two dozen UC Riverside college students chanted “Folks over property” and carried indicators that learn “Crush the contract” and “Seize the beans of manufacturing” as they climbed 4 flights of stairs throughout the college’s administrative workplace Wednesday afternoon.
The purpose was to current Chancellor Kim Wilcox a petition with almost 800 signatories calling on the college’s administration to dump licensing agreements with espresso juggernaut Starbucks due to what critics name “union-busting campaigns.”
The protest Wednesday in Riverside mirrored an analogous motion Tuesday at UCLA, the place college students affiliated with the union-organizing group Starbucks Staff United have been main efforts to push Starbucks off faculty campuses.
Starbucks Staff United says there are greater than 385 shops and greater than 9,500 employees unionized all through company-owned Starbucks retailers. The espresso large operates 38,587 shops in 80 nations with 235,000 workers.
One student-run marketing campaign claimed victory final 12 months when Cornell College pledged to not renew a partnership with Starbucks when their contract ends in June 2025.
“We would like Starbucks off this campus,” mentioned UC Riverside junior Eren Whitfield, an organizer with the group UC Riverside College students Towards Starbucks. “There’s a numerous record of federal labor violations towards Starbucks, together with the firing of workers concerned with union organizing, the denying of elevated advantages and so many different issues.”
Whitfield, a psychology main who aspires to get entangled in social work, led a protest at midday in entrance of Hinderaker Corridor, the workplace of the chancellor and college directors.
He carried a printed copy of the digital petition and headed towards the chancellor’s workplace with a small cadre of supporters.
The one visitors they bumped into was from a line of scholars and workers that snaked out of one of many a number of school-run shops that supply Starbucks drinks and snacks.
After reaching the chancellor’s workplace, Whitfield knocked on Wilcox’s door and obtained no reply.
That’s when Gerry Bomotti, UC Riverside’s vice chancellor and chief monetary officer, opened his door close to the chancellor’s workplace and accepted the petition on behalf of the administration.
Whitfield requested that the group be given “some form of response” by directors inside per week.
Bomotti agreed to learn the letter and provide some suggestions.
“We’ll need to educate ourselves on what their issues are and have the ability to get again to them and chat about it,” he mentioned.
UC Riverside owns a licensing settlement with Starbucks that can be up for renewal in 2025, Bomotti mentioned.
“In essence, we take part in a franchise settlement with them, however we promote and function the whole lot,” he mentioned.
The campus has one Starbucks retailer, however a number of school-affiliated shops that promote Starbucks-branded drinks and merchandise.
All full-time, nonmanagement employees at Starbucks areas all through the campus are unionized college workers who’ve collective bargaining rights, campus officers confirmed.
“This protest isn’t simply concerning the employees on campus however concerning the actions that Starbucks has taken with its workers throughout the nation,” mentioned Max Ohshima-Li, a UC Riverside senior who’s majoring in political science.
The Nationwide Labor Relations Board filed a criticism in December accusing Starbucks of closing six Los Angeles-area shops and 17 different areas nationwide in 2022 allegedly to suppress union organizing.
A Starbucks official rejected claims that the company was hostile to organizing.
“We respect our companions’ proper to prepare, freely affiliate, interact in lawful union actions and discount collectively with out worry of reprisal or retaliation — and stay dedicated to our said purpose of reaching ratified contracts for union-represented shops in 2024,” spokesperson Andrew Trull mentioned in a press release.
Trull mentioned Starbucks has engaged in negotiations with a number of labor organizations representing workers all through North America, together with the Teamsters and United Steelworkers. He acknowledged some problem in agreeing to a “format of bargaining” with Starbucks Staff United.
“We disagree with claims made that Starbucks engages in ‘union busting,’” he mentioned.
He additionally mentioned Starbucks supplied strong advantages for pupil employees.
Trull mentioned the common wage is $17.50 an hour for baristas, plus ideas, together with full medical, dental and imaginative and prescient advantages for these working at the very least 20 hours per week. He mentioned the enterprise additionally gives free undergraduate levels for workers who lodge 20 or extra hours per week via a partnership with Arizona State College’s on-line program for first-time diploma seekers.
At UCLA on Tuesday, about 15 college students supplied statements throughout an Related College students of UCLA board assembly.
They then delivered a petition to ASUCLA Chief Government Pouria Abbassi.
David Ramirez, a UCLA senior majoring in geography and environmental and labor research, mentioned Starbucks “doesn’t share UCLA’s values.”
“We demanded that UCLA lower any buying agreements with Starbucks and to take away any amenities off campus,” Ramirez mentioned. “We are able to do higher.”