Wobblies try to unionize a Starbucks in New York

By Thomas Ginsberg
Knight Ridder Newspapers

PHILADELPHIA — Starbucks Coffee, a corporate icon of success and style since the 1990s, is confronting a legendary warrior for labor rights from the 1920s.

The Wobblies, otherwise known as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a leftist labor organization founded in 1905 and now based in Philadelphia, has taken initial steps toward unionizing a Starbucks coffee shop in New York City — the first in the United States.

If it succeeds, the group could score a notable public-relations victory for labor. It might even encourage more organizing in the hard-to-unionize service industry.

More...