Starbucks Worker, Michelle Eisen: “It should not take an act of bravery to ensure you have a voice at work.”
WASHINGTON – At today’s Education and Labor Committee hearing, “In Solidarity: Removing Barriers to Organizing,” Michelle Eisen, a Starbucks barista, explained what it was like to organize at her workplace.
View Michelle Eisen’s full remarks on YouTube.
“It should not take an act of bravery to ensure that you have a voice at work. We need Starbucks to recognize our desire to organize, which the NLRA explicitly states is our right. We need Starbucks to stop mistreating the workers it claims to care about and to fulfill its legal obligation to come to the table and negotiate with us in good faith.
“We are tired of fighting a company that can afford to do better by its hourly workers. We are tired of listening to billionaire CEOs take sole credit for the billions of dollars of profit made off our labor. We are tired of watching Starbucks continue to violate workers’ rights, knowing that the law will fail to offer any meaningful consequences.
“But most of all, we are tired of fighting Howard Schultz's ego. We need people in power to call Starbucks out for this repulsive behavior because worker rights are human rights. We need labor law reform like the PRO Act, so that the laws work to protect the people they were put in place for. We need better funding for the NLRB so that the agency has the resources it needs to enforce the law.
“We need you to stand with us as the American labor movement does what it always has. Fight for a future that is just and works for all of us.”
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