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So many mourners lined up to see Pope Francis lying in state in a simple wooden coffin inside St. Peter’s Basilica that the Vatican kept the doors open all night due to higher-than-expected turnout, closing the basilica for just an hour Thursday morning for cleaning.The basilica is bathed in a hushed silence as mourners from across the globe make a slow, shuffling procession up the main aisle to pay their last respects to Francis, who died Monday after a stroke.The hours spent on line up the stately via della Conciliazione through St. Peter’s Square and through the Holy Door into the basilica has allowed mourners to find community around the Argentine pontiff’s legacy of inclusion and humble persona.Emiliano Fernandez, a Catholic from Mexico, was waiting in line around midnight, and after two hours still had not reached the basilica.“I don’t even care how much time I wait here. It’s just the opportunity to (show) how I admired Francisco in his life,” said Fernandez, whose admiration for the pope grew during his 2016 visit to Mexico. “I think because of the respect that I have for him and the great person he was, it’s worth the wait.”The last numbers released by the Vatican said more than 50,000 people had paid their respects during the first 12 hours of the public viewing, starting at 11 a.m. Wednesday. The basilica closed for just one hour Thursday morning, from 6 a.m. until 7 a.m., the planned opening time.Among the first-day mourners was a church group of 14-year-olds from near Milan who arrived for the now-suspended canonization of the first millennial saint, as well as a woman who prayed to the pope for a successful operation and an Italian family who brought their small children to see the pope’s body.“We came because we didn’t bring them when he was alive, so we thought we would bring them for a final farewell,” said Rosa Scorpati, who was exiting the basilica Wednesday with her three children in strollers. “They were good, but I don’t think they really understood because they haven’t yet had to deal with death.”Like many others, the Scorpati family from Calabria was in Rome on an Easter vacation, only to be met with the news of Francis’ death on Easter Monday.Out of devotion to the pope and his message of inclusion, the grieving faithful joined the procession of mourners that wended from St. Peter’s Square through the basilica’s Holy Door, with the repentant among them winning an indulgence, a form of atonement granted during the Jubilee Holy Year. From there, the line extended down the basilica’s central aisle to the pope’s simple wooden casket.By late Wednesday, the wait appeared to be three or four hours and growing. A person doing crowd management estimated that the wait was closer to five hours. The mourners stretched down the center of Via della Conciliazione, in a lane set aside for Jubilee pilgrims.After three days of public viewing, a funeral Mass including heads of state will be held Saturday in St. Peter’s Square. The pope will then be buried in a niche within the St. Mary Major Basilica, near his favorite Madonna icon.The death of Francis, who was 88, capped a 12-year pontificate characterized by his concern for the poor and his message of inclusion, but he was also criticized by some conservatives who felt alienated by his progressive outlook.A procession of priests, bishops and cardinals accompanied Francis’ body Wednesday on its journey from a private viewing inside the Vatican to St. Peter’s Square. The pageantry contrasted with the human interactions of rank-and-file mourners at the public viewing.Francis lay in state in an open casket, perched on a ramp facing mourners, with four Swiss Guards standing at attention. As the crowd reached the casket, many lifted their smartphones to snap a photo.One nun accompanying an elderly woman with a cane walked away sobbing, “My pope is gone.”Such despair was rare. The mood was more one of gratitude for a pope who had, by example, taught many people to open their minds.“I am very devoted to the pope,” said Ivenes Bianco, who was in Rome from Brindisi, Italy, for an operation. “He was important to me because he brought many people together by encouraging coexistence.” She cited Francis’ acceptance of the gay community and his insistence on helping the poor.Humbeline Coroy came to Rome from Perpignan, France, for the planned canonization Sunday of 15-year-old Carlo Acutis, which was suspended after the pope’s death. She stayed to pay respects to Francis, enjoying exchanges with Japanese mourners they met as they waited under the sun in St. Peter’s Square.“For me, it is a lot of things. In my job, I work with disabled children, and I traveled to Madagascar to work with poor people. Being here, and close to the pope, is a way of integrating these experiences, and make them concrete,” she said. Coroy also brought prayers for her father, who is sick with cancer.For Alessandra Nardi, the pope’s death brought back memories of the death three years ago of her beloved uncle Luigi, who used to call her from St. Peter’s Square when he came to see Pope Francis say Mass. He “let me hear the bells toll. It was a beautiful thing.”Riccardo Ojedea from Colombia said his experience waiting in line for two hours to pay respects to the pope had shown him how much “humanity loves the pope.”“He left a very important legacy for everyone,” he said, “to make this world happier.”AP video journalist Isaia Montelione contributed. Colleen Barry, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
Weve all heard the familiar directive: Were going through another reorganization and will be cutting 20% of headcount, but priorities remain the same and, in fact, may expand. Meanwhile, youre being told to just make it work” without offering additional resources, guidance, or support. This conversation, unfortunately, isn’t unique. It represents the silent crisis engulfing middle management across America. Middle managerswho oversee 90% of the U.S. workforceare facing unprecedented challenges in 2025. Recent KPMG data reveals nearly one-third are actively disengaged, while 62% report unsustainable stress levels as they struggle with expanded responsibilities amid shrinking teams. At the same time, Gallup’s findings show employee dissatisfaction at 15-year highs. The economic uncertainty plaguing the U.S. has created a perfect storm for middle management burnout. Organizations are seemingly undergoing constant reorgs and scrambling to eliminate redundancies, optimize productivity and reduce resources to do more with less. Middle managers find themselves caught between the demands from top leadership to cut costs and maintain output while keeping their teams productive and motivated at the same time. The concrete middle Middle managers are what I call “the concrete middle”the foundation bearing pressure from both the top echelon of organizations and the functions and teams reporting to them. They understand the real flow of work, the network connections, and who the true “magic makers” are in the organization. They’re facing tightening budgets from above while trying to maintain an engaged, high-performing workforce below. What makes this crisis particularly acute in 2025 is that the job market is reported as healthy but remains very tight. Employers may be in a wait-and-see mode, and struggling leaders may not see viable alternatives. This creates a dangerous apathywhat I’ve observed as “doing just enough to survive.” But here’s the concern: When the pendulum swings the other way and market conditions improve, companies will feel real painbecause employees remember. They remember which organizations honored their values during difficult times and which simply treated people as disposable resources. Break the cycle of disempowerment One of the biggest challenges middle managers face is maintaining a sense of autonomy and growing their employees’ talent and potential. How do you keep top talent feeling they can contribute meaningfully and advance their careers amid constant change and disruption? The truth is, during volatile periods, trust and empowerment often take a back seat to numbers. While financial responsibility is certainly necessary, organizations need a more nuanced approachparticularly for functions that drive growth. During these unprecedented times, I’ve coached leaders to advocate and empower themselves by harnessing this moment as a chance to reinvent and reimagine how their work is being done. Because amid the volatile and unpredictable times lies opportunityan opportunity to change and employ new strategies, tactics, and ways of working that may not have been supported during more stable, constant, and calm periods. Middle managers, with their unique vantage point, often see possibilities that senior leadership overlooks or never considers. We need to give them the tools, trust, and ability to reimagine their work in ways that might actually achieve growth in a down period while achieving cost savings by simply doing things differently and better. This approach requires a fundamental shift in perspectivefrom viewing middle managers as mere implementers to recognizing them as the crucial bridge between strategy, execution, and market growth. Move from platitudes to real development Many middle managers have been told, “Nobody owns your development but you.” Translation: Its up to you to grow yourself, learn, and improve. Traditional leadership development approaches are not meeting the needs of today’s leaders. The solution isn’t another perfunctory annual performance-review exerciseit’s creating intentional support systems that address well-being, professional growth, trust, and empowerment. Organizations must implement scenario planning into their talent management process. This means preparing leaders for all market conditionsgrowth, stable, uncertain, and competitive landscapes. Building this muscle prevents paralysis during challenging times and empowers managers to push for a strategic repositioning of their teams to restructure, realign, and optimize team performance. The development of top talent isn’t just about surviving difficult periodsit’s about positioning them to deliver in different ways that might not have been possible before. In times of disruption, there’s often more support and openness for working differently, adopting new tactics, approaches, and novel ways of working than during periods when business as usual comes with a playbook of what to do and how to do it. Cut the consensus culture Perhaps the most insidious barrier to middle-management effectiveness is what I call “consensus culture”the endless cycle of meetings and layers of review and approvals that exist primarily to stroke egos rather than drive decisions and unleash innovation and potential. During my time leading organizational development initiatives, we introduced the philosophy of GEPO (Good Enough, Proceed On). This wasn’t about compromising the operational excellence of what you’re doing, but about streamlining how ideas are socialized. Do you really need three to five meetings with people at all levels to make a decision? Can you eliminate the pre-meetings prior to the decision meetings and the “I’m just being informed” meetings that clog calendars without adding value? By streamlining decision-making and trusting and empowering the people who own and support the work, organizations can reduce the time-to-decision and allow experts to take true accountability. This approach isn’t just about efficiencyit’s about restoring purpose and autonomy to the manager’s role while empowering them to do their jobs effectively with minimal bureaucracy. In the absence of this trust, we handicap our middle managers. They become dependent on groupthink and consensus-driven approaches, operating in a highly risk-averse fashion because they fear making independent decisions without extensive backup and group support. This is the opposite of innovationand organizations simply cannot afford thi handicap if they want to innovate, disrupt, and improve performance. Embrace AI as ally, not threat The AI revolution adds another layer of complexity and also an opportunity for middle managers in 2025. Too often, leaders view these technologies through a lens of fear rather than as an efficient resource that enables productivity and output. Its a genuine fear of replacement. But I don’t believe AI will replace good managers. Instead, organizations must be transparent about AI’s business value while generating excitement about its possibilities. AI should be positioned as a complement to human talentjust like we would approach any new technology. Leaders at the top need to create engagement and excitement around AI as a strategic lever that can help streamline processes and improve decision-making. This isn’t about replacing jobs but freeing up time and attention for the work that truly mattersthe strategic thinking and human connection that AI cant replace. The path forward requires moving beyond traditional development approaches to build resilient leadership pipelines capable of sustaining organizations through continuous transformation. By elevating and empowering middle managers, companies can stabilize their operations while preparing for future challenges in an increasingly complex business environment. The companies that will thrive in this era of disruption will be those that transform their middle management from a burnout risk into an innovation advantage through empowerment, trust, autonomy, and accountability for their work.
Category:
E-Commerce
On a quiet residential street lined with unassuming homes and white picket fences in Gliwice, Poland, one building is not like the rest. Its a hulking, bright silver structure that’s covered entirely in pipes. This eye-catching building is the new headquarters for Gambit, a Polish pipe distribution company specializing in underground water systems. Designed by the architecture firm KWK Promes, the headquarters takes Gambits building materials aboveground, transforming pipes from a utilitarian necessity into an aesthetic material that encases the buildings entire exterior. The result is a visually striking structure that cleverly merges architecture with product advertising. [Photo: Juliusz Sokołowski/courtesy KWK Promes] Building a headquarters out of pipes While the idea to create an office entirely covered in pipes might seem like an avant-garde concept, it actually started as a cost-saving measure. The idea to use pipes on the facade came up when the investorthe company Gambitasked us to design an office-warehouse building that would serve as its unique showcase, but at the lowest possible cost,” says Robert Konieczny, founder of KWK Promes. “We then thought that since they deal with specialized pipes, we could use this very materialespecially since they could acquire it at cost price. The concept of using Gambits actual pipes was short-lived, as Konieczny’s team quickly discovered that PVC pipes meant for underground use are prone to oxidizing in the sun, tend to be quite bulky, and dont meet Polish fire safety requirements. Still, the firm wanted to follow through on the idea of transforming Gambits building material into a custom cladding that would resemble a stack of pipes.” Ultimately, they found a way to make it happen without breaking the bank. [Photo: Juliusz Sokołowski/courtesy KWK Promes] To mimic Gambits pipes, KWK Promes commissioned custom silver tubes from a metal fabrication company, each made from inexpensive raw aluminum sheetinga material the company has also used for projects like an apartment complex in Katowice, Poland, and a futuristic mountain home. KWK Promes explained on the Archello platform that as an added advantage, the aluminum sheeting develops a patina over time, taking on a matte, raw character reminiscent of concrete.” Importantly, the firm added, “the sheet is incredibly durable and virtually indestructible, making it easy to maintain. This is crucial for us because the operation of buildings generates up to 30% of CO2 emissions, so we always seek simple, low-maintenance solutions. [Photo: Juliusz Sokołowski/courtesy KWK Promes] The final structure includes a two-story office section with sloping walls, a cube-shaped warehouse to hold the companys inventory, and a lower workshop section. The entire exterior is fitted with piping, while rooftop skylights and glass windows allow natural light into the working spaces. Inside, concrete walls and flooring have been added to mimic the building’s eventual aging process. [Photo: Juliusz Sokołowski/courtesy KWK Promes] A multifunctional material Aesthetically, the cladding comes about as close to resembling a stack of pipes as a building could get, lending parts of the structure the disconcerting sense that it might be moments from rolling away. From certain angles, the sides of the tubing create a striped pattern, while other angles of the building take on a honeycomb pattern from the open ends of the pipes. KWK Promes also hopes that beyond its visual advantages, the pipe cladding might serve a purpose for the surrounding environment. [Photo: Juliusz Sokołowski/courtesy KWK Promes] Initially, at the investors suggestion, the design included protective nets for the pipes,” Konieczny explains. “Over time, however, we decided to leave the pipes open so that, for example, birds could make their home there. In the end, we managed to convince the investor to abandon the netsalthough it’s hard to say whether it was the ecological arguments or the financial ones that convinced them more, as this decision significantly reduced the implementation costs. In an era when remote and hybrid work arrangements increasingly influence the way office interiors are designed, the Gambit headquarters is a reminder that theres still plenty of room for innovation on an offices exterioreven in an industry that rarely sees the light of day.
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E-Commerce
Oceans cover about 70% of the Earths surface, yet the ocean floor remains largely untouched by humans. But perhaps not for long. A Canadian-based firm called the Metals Co. (TMC) recently announced plans to ask the Trump administration to allow it to mine the deep seabed for valuable critical metals in the Pacific Ocean. President Donald Trump is reportedly considering an executive order that would speed up permitting for deep-sea mining, which has prompted outrage from other countries. While some small and exploratory deep-sea mining operations already exist, the practice has yet to happen on a large commercial scale, partly due to fears that it could cause catastrophic damage to the pristine seafloor environment and the wealth of life harbored there. But the worsening climate crisis and the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels has put deep-sea mining in the spotlight. Clean energy technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries contain critical minerals like nickel, lithium, cobalt, copper, and manganese, and concerns are growing over whether well have enough of these materials to meet near-term net-zero goals. Some companies have pitched deep-sea mining as a solution. But would the risks be worth the potential rewards? Into the deep TMCs mining process would involve collecting potato-size balls of rock, known as polymetallic nodules, that rest gently on top of the seafloor sediment and contain various critical minerals. These nodules have formed over millions of years, and they carpet vast swathes of the seabed. A large rover-like machine would be lowered from a ship down to the seafloor where it would gather the nodules and send them back up to the ship. (To give you a sense of depth, the area in the Pacific where TMC wants to mine, called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), is a deep-sea abyssal plain some 2.5 miles down and is estimated to hold 21 billion tons of nodules.) The water and sediment that comes up with the nodules would then be pumped back into the ocean. A 2021 concept rendering of a Metals Co. mining device [Image: Bjarke Ingels Group/The Metals Co.] The company says it would pay careful attention not to harm the integrity of the deep-ocean ecosystem during this process and plans to use a real-time monitoring program that will enable it to adapt, pause, and change . . . operations to stay within expected ecological thresholds.” But the nodules themselves are an essential part of that ecosystem, and removing them would have consequences. Nodules are among the only hard surfaces in a vast plain of sludgy sediment, and serve as a habitat for many slow-growing and unique creatures, including sea sponges, corals, and octopuses. And the CCZ likely contains many thousands of species that have yet to be identified. Research suggests that removing the nodules would lead to a loss of food-web integrity and a significant depreciation of faunal biodiversity. Disturbing the ocean food web could have cascading effects, putting many fish populations at risk and threatening the livelihoods and food security of millions of people. (The Trump administration did not respond to request for comment by the time of publication.) There are other concerns. The mere presence of the rover itself in an environment that has remained untouched for millennia would likely disturb its living organisms, most of which exist in the top 2 inches of sediment, explains Oliver Ashford, a marine biologist with the World Resources Institutes Ocean Program. The organisms there aren’t really adapted to rapidly changing currents and being thrown around and disrupted, he says. They’re quite delicate organisms normally. So the physical interaction with that machine might cause death. A recent study published in the journal Nature found that life at a small deep-sea mining test site in the CCZ is still recovering four decades after the tests were conducted. The creatures that arent physically disturbed by the rover could be harmed by changes in temperature, light, and sound. The activity could stir up large plumes of sediment that get picked up by ocean currents and spread across hundreds of miles, smothering and starving sponges and coral and disrupting fishing activities. Theres even some concern that mining could interfere with the oceans natural ability to sequester carbon and produce oxygen, further harming the Earths climate. TMC doesnt deny that deep-sea mining comes with environmental risks, but says the clean energy transition will require trade-offs. Whos in charge around here? The U.N.s International Seabed Authority is responsible for setting environmental and financial regulations for the nascent deep-sea mining industry, but has yet to do so even after years of deliberations. Theyre developing regulations from scratch for an industry that could potentially have a large environmental impact, Ashford says of the ISA. I feel like it’s a process that shouldn’t be rushed. But the sluggish pace of this rulemaking has frustrated some mining firms, including TMC, that are tired of waiting. Technically the United States doesnt have to wait for the ISA to give mining the go-ahead because it never ratified the UN Law of th Sea, the 1994 treaty that put the ISA in charge of seabed mining. This is why TMC has come knocking on Trumps door. The company promises a massive and rapid injection of metals into the U.S. if its allowed to mine the seabed. This is important because demand for critical minerals is expected to more than double by 2030 and triple by 2040 as clean energy technology advances. While mineral reserves are abundant on land, production tends to be concentrated in a handful of countriesin China especiallywhich makes the supply chain unreliable. In the U.S., for example, more than 80% of critical minerals are imported. And heightened trade tensions will further tighten supply: China recently restricted exports of seven rare earth elements in response to Trumps tariffs on Chinese goods. Lack of investment has also made it difficult to rapidly scale up mineral production. Deep-sea mining, therefore, is a path to making real progress toward solving our supply chain problem, TMC says in a promotional video. TMC also argues that deep-sea mining would be less harmful for the environment than terrestrial mining activities. Its true that land mining contributes to pollution, resource depletion, and damage to biodiversity. Mining, by its nature, is not a zero-harm activity. It poses significant risks to the environment and local communities, writes Melissa Barbanell at the World Resources Institute. But its not clear that deep-sea mining would be more sustainable than land mining, and TMC admits that seabed mining is unlikely to replace land mining anytime soon. Peering into the future Some groups predict that rapid technological advances, improved recycling methods, and robust circular economies would be enough to help us use the minerals we have more efficiently, eliminating the need for deep-sea mining altogether. Future mineral demand can be met without deep seabed mining, declared the World Wildlife Fund in a report finding that innovations could curb demand for critical minerals by 20% to 58% by 2050. As with so many new technologies, figuring out whether deep-sea mining is a good idea or a bad one isnt straightforward. A paper published in the journal Ocean Sustainability a few years ago tried to look at the question through an economic lens. The researchers wanted to know: Of all the key stakeholdersfrom mining companies to governments to humanity at largewho really benefits from deep-sea mining, and by how much? Our conclusion was that only the commercial mining companies are likely to get some profit, and it’s not much, says Ussif Rashid Sumaila, a professor of ocean and fisheries economics at the University of British Columbia, and lead author on the paper. The analysis found that revenues would likely be huge for deep-sea mining companies in the first few years while demand for minerals is high, but would drop off as the market is flooded and prices come down. Combine this with high operational costs and the threat of numerous expensive lawsuits, and the long-term viability of deep-sea mining looks tenuous. Some companies, like the Norwegian firm Loke Marine Minerals, have already gone bust due to funding troubles. As for another key stakeholdernatureSumailas paper concluded that the costs of managing environmental damage caused by deep-sea mining will likely be astronomical. Look, he says, sometimes you just have to leave things alone.
Category:
E-Commerce
Michelle Eisen, a 15-year Starbucks veteran, is a barista for the coffee chain at a location in Buffalothe first Starbucks store to unionize back in December 2021, in fact. But on a Tuesday in March, Eisen was at a Pittsburgh Starbucks, to participate in what Starbucks Workers United members have dubbed sip-ins. A spin on sit-ins, they involve union workers and allies hanging out for hours in a Starbucks store, ordering drinks under names like Union Strong and leaving tips for workers. In the weekend leading up to that Tuesday, union members held more than 100 sip-ins across the country. It was a message to Starbucks management: Union workers were calling attention to the fact that, more than three and a half years after organizing their first store, they still didnt have a contract. Negotiations between the union and the company have broken down, members say. Since September, the union has presented the company with a number of suggestions around wages, benefits, and guaranteed hours, all of which are meant to be negotiations, but it says the company wouldn’t even counter those offers. The union (and the National Labor Relations Board) argue that Starbucks hasn’t been bargaining in good faith. But the Pittsburgh action was more than just a sip-in. Partway through, the workers at that store announced that they were on strike and walked out. Most of the attendees followed, forming a picket line on the sidewalk. Eisen and four others stayed in the store, refusing to leave. The sip-in had turned into an occupation. The stores manager called a manager from a different store for help. They would periodically come over and they were like, We need you to leave and wed say, We’re not leaving. We don’t know what you don’t understand about this, but we will sleep in the store, Eisen says. The five of them, all current or former Starbucks workers, were asking that company executives, including CEO Brian Niccol, talk to them and respond to the union’s demands. The crowd outside grew louder; there were speeches and chants from people on the picket line. Eventually the store manager called the police, who gave the occupiers three warnings to exit the store. When Eisen and the others refused, they were arrested, handcuffed, and walked out the front doors. That action was a form of civil disobedience, a nonviolent tactic in which people intentionally break the law or disobey orders in order to highlight actions they say are unjust. It has long been used by activistsduring the civil rights movement, the fight for womens suffrage, and frequently by labor unions looking to improve worker conditions. For Starbucks Workers United, the decision to engage in acts of civil disobedience didnt happen overnight. It’s a natural evolution or escalation for where we are on the campaign, Eisen says. After three and a half years, still in bargaining, and . . . with an offer [from Starbucks] that is very far from sufficient given what this company can provide to its workers, we felt like we needed to take a stand. Starbucks sit-ins spur action Starbucks Workers United has been doing various strikes since its inception in 2021, but recently, those protests and strikes have been escalating to arrests. A January sit-in at a Park Slope store was first. That was a union location that the company was permanently closing. Ahead of the closure, union members peacefully protested, and at least seven were arrested. Those arrests got a lot of media coverage, and Eisen says it pushed the company to agree, in writing, that they were willing to go to mediationa process in which a company and a union meet with a neutral third party mediator to assist in negotiations. That agreement to use a mediator was the first progress the union has seen in weeks, Eisen says. Before that, there had been a December bargaining session at which the company proposed an economic package with no wage increases for union baristas. The union opposed that proposal, and then conducted a five-day strike across multiple cities. The day of the Pittsburgh occupation coincided with two others, at a store in Chicago and also in Seattle. (In Chicago and Pittsburgh, 16 people in total were arrested.) The timing was intentional: The next day, March 12, Starbucks was holding a shareholder meeting. We wanted them to go into that meeting having to defend their actions when it came to how they were dealing with the union stores [and] union workers, Eisen says. This week, we took direct action to show @Starbucks the urgency of finalizing contracts with the wages, staffing, and protections we need to thrive.Were doing what it takes to win. And we won't stop until we do. pic.twitter.com/OQ60OOGUEO— Starbucks Workers United (@SBWorkersUnited) March 13, 2025 At that meeting, Starbucks executives were asked when the company would negotiate its first union contract. Though she didnt give a timeline, Sara Kelly, executive vice president and chief partner officer for Starbucks, answered in part that, When a partner elects a union to represent them, we are committed to engaging in good faith with that union and the partners who have selected that union to negotiate fair contracts. In a response to a request for comment about these actions and the current bargaining process, a Starbucks spokesperson said the company is focused on creating the best job in retail, and added that the company and the union have held more than nine bargaining sessions since last April and three mediation sessions, reaching over 30 meaningful agreements on hundreds of topics Workers United delegates told us were important to them. They reiterated that the company is committed to good faith bargaining. Why Starbucks workers say civil disobedience makes sense Workers are willing to risk arrest to draw attention to their fightand that fact alone should show the company how desperate its employees feel, the union says. You’ve got people you employ who feel so strongly about the way you are mistreating them that theyre willing to put their body, their being, at risk to demand change, Eisen says. I just think you have to take that seriously. The union and Starbucks have come to some tentative agreementsaround issues like safety and dress codebut not on economic issues. The union says the minimal concessions from the companyno raises in the firt year and a guarantee of just 1.5% in future yearsamounts to less than 50 cents an hour for most baristas. The union also still wants progress around guaranteed hours and staffing; they say some workers have had their hours cut below the threshold to qualify for benefits, even as stores are understaffed. Starbucks Workers United filed an unfair labor practice against the company specifically alleging that its refusal to negotiate on economic suggestions, instead coming with a “fixed economic position,” is against the spirit of bargaining in good faith. Though Eisen was calmly walked out of the building when she was arrested, she says the sit-in was still nerve wracking: there are a lot of unknowns in terms of how the police will respond or how things may escalate. Though civil disobedience itself is nonviolent, it can provoke violent reactions from others. The union knew that if they were going to engage in actions that come with safety risks or potential arrest, they had to prepare their members. Starbucks Workers United reached out to labor activist Bill Fletcher Jr. to run workshops on civil disobedience, mostly talking about the tactics history and what the union should know if it wanted to carry this out. The most important thing is that you have a critical mass of your membership that embraces this and feels the need for it, he says, because if you dont, you will find yourself quickly isolated and ultimately defeated. When some people think of civil disobedience, they might think of the civil rights movement and the Greensboro sit-ins in which young Black students protested racial segregation. To some, the plight of Starbucks workers may seem, in comparison, less serious or not deserving of such drastic action. Unionized Starbucks workers have heard criticisms of their efforts since they began. When, in April 2022, an employee mentioned unfair labor practice charges against the company to then-CEO Howard Schulz, he told her, If youre not happy at Starbucks, you can go work for another company. Workers have also been criticized for being just baristas, implying that the title isnt deserving of raises or worker protections. Baristas, though, have been trying to communicate just how chaotic and difficult their jobs areand how understaffing exacerbates that. They’ve also highlighted issues with mobile ordering (asking for pauses or limitations during busy times) and their concerns about low pay. Eisen adds that its a pervasive American viewpoint that some jobs are just bad, and people should try not to end up there. But theres very little recognition, she notes, of the fact that these are jobs that need to be done. And they are in a lot of ways essential. Why do we look at a job and say, ‘Well, that’s not a skilled job? Working at Starbucks has been the most physically demanding job shes ever doneand shes put in years to develop her skills, get to know regular customers, and make friends with coworkers. Why should I walk away from all that? she says. Why not try to make it better? Starbucks unionand civil disobediencesits in a bigger context Diego Franco, a union member and Starbucks worker at a Chicago store, is trying to get a better jobby making his at Starbucks better. He was one of the people arrested at the Chicago sit-in, and though he said he felt nervous ahead of the action, it helped knowing he wasnt doing it alone. [Civil disobedience] comes with a lot of risk, but with that risk, it shows dedicationnot just to get a contract, but to the people who you work with, he says. Starbucks workers all over the country are participating in a strong showing of solidarity today.Civil disobedience, strikes, solidarity actions, and more are happening at $SBUX locations all over the country.Hear us yet, @Starbucks? ITS TIME TO FINALIZE CONTRACTS NOW. https://t.co/e9GXWHFlFS pic.twitter.com/6hpxshl7l1— Starbucks Workers United (@SBWorkersUnited) March 11, 2025 That camaraderie is key, Fletcher says. When speaking to the union, he emphasized the risks and hard realities of civil disobedience, how these actions require preparationand the fact that workers need to know they’re not alone in order to get through it. The Starbucks unions cause has reached beyond the company. It helped spur a larger revitalized labor movement that has seen record-high strike actions and led to the highest U.S. support for labor unions since 1965. Starbucks workers sit in that broad labor contextas does civil disobedience as a tactic. People are standing on the shoulders of others, he says. Theres a history to this. Since the first Starbucks store unionized in December 2021, it has been joined by more than 550 stores, encompassing more than 11,000 workers. Though labor experts have long said that penalties under current labor laws are so weak that they’re essentially toothless, the Trump administration has already been even more hostile toward unions, adding to the challenges workers face. Still, Eisen is hopeful about the future of Starbucks Workers United. I know these members and I know this campaign, and I know that for every one of us who gets exhausted and has to take a step back, there are 10 more Starbucks workers who are willing to step into their place. And so the company is fighting a losing battle, she says. We will keep growing [our actions] and getting bigger, until the company just has to recognize that.
Category:
E-Commerce
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