Solidarity Unionism at Starbucks – Staughton Lynd and Daniel Gross

Legendary legal scholar Staughton Lynd teams up with influential labor organizer Daniel Gross in this exposition on solidarity unionism, the do-it-yourself workplace organizing system that is rapidly gaining prominence around the country and around the world. Lynd and Gross make the audacious argument that workers themselves on the shop floor, not outside union officials, are the real hope for labor’s future. Utilizing the principles of solidarity unionism, any group of co-workers, like the workers at Starbucks, can start building an organization to win an independent voice at work without waiting for a traditional trade union to come and “organize” them. Indeed, in a leaked recording of a conference call, the nation’s most prominent union-busting lobbyist coined a term, “the Starbucks problem,” as a warning to business executives about the risk of working people organizing themselves and taking direct action to improve issues at work. Combining history and theory with the groundbreaking practice of the model used by Starbucks workers, Lynd and Gross make a compelling case for solidarity unionism as an effective, resilient, and deeply democratic approach to winning a voice on the job and in society. About the Authors: Daniel Gross is an organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World on its Starbucks campaign and the founding director of Brandworkers International, a non-profit organization for retail and food employees. Staughton Lynd is a labor lawyer and historian. He wrote the original Labor Law for the Rank and Filer more than 25 years ago. Staughton Lynd practiced employment law for twenty years in Youngstown, Ohio. He was also lead counsel in a lawsuit seeking to block US Steel’s closure of all its Youngstown-area facilities, and together with his wife Alice represented retirees in a number of industries seeking to retain or reclaim their promised pension and health care benefits. Together, Staughton and Alice edited a collection of oral history interviews with workers titled Rank and File, now in its fourth edition. Additionally Staughton edited We Are All Leaders, which brought together articles by a number of young scholars exploring various past instances of solidarity unionism. Authors: Staughton Lynd and Daniel Gross • Illustrations by Tom KeoughPublisher: PM PressISBN: 9781604864205Published: 1/2011Format: PamphletPage count: 36Size: 5.5 x 8.5