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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.
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E-Commerce
When it opened in 2001, watchmaker Timex’s new headquarters building in Middlebury, Connecticut, was an architectural wonder. Its all-glass walls and open floor plan put the entire 275-person company in one big, light-filled workspace, covered by a swooping arched roof. It was a radical embrace of the ideals of openness, collaboration, and anti-hierarchical social interaction. On top of all this, the award-winning building had one additionaland uniquefeature: a hole in the top that shines sunlight down on an ancient time-marking device known as a meridian line. Covering the building at the time, Fast Company noted the building itself is a watch. But now the building is on the verge of being demolished, decades earlier than most buildings of its generation would be threatened. A distribution center has been proposed for development on the site, and Timex, which is now majority owned by a hedge fund, is planning to move out. About the only thing standing in the way of the wrecking ball is a man named Nicholas Stuller. In 2020, the 61-year-old and his family moved to Middlebury, where he runs a financial technology startup. The town of about 8,000 people sits 25 miles outside of New Haven, and is mostly green and bucolic. Its the kind of place where not much changes. So in 2023, many residents were surprised to learn of plans for a speculative 670,000-square-foot distribution center that a group of developers wanted to build there, not far from Interstate 84. Part of the complex, named Southford Park, would sit right on the footprint of the Timex building, known as Watch Hill. To build the distribution center, the Timex building would have to be torn down. [Photo: M3Media Productions] Stuller learned the news at the same time as the rest of the community, but he was even more in the dark: Still relatively new to the town, he didn’t know Timex was located there, or about its unique headquarters. Curious, he took a detour one morning in October 2023 on the way to dropping his daughter off at grade school. Stuller and his daughter pulled up to the building and walked in the front door to take a look. They ended up going on an impromptu tour led by a group of eager company employees. They rolled out the red carpet. An hour and 15 minutes later, I had to take my daughter to school, but they kept on talking about the building, about the company, Stuller says. [Its] a magnificent building, he adds. It’s so unusual. I’ve been in a lot of buildings around the country and the world, and this is a really unique building. I walked out of there saying, wow, something’s got to get done. Irrespective of the distribution center, this building needs to be preserved. So Stuller launched a nonprofit called Save Historic Middlebury with the goal of creating preservation laws in the town, which currently has none. The intent is to establish the legal framework to stop the demolition of the Timex building. For now, there’s little to prevent the building’s owners from knocking it down. Save Historic Middlebury is trying to get the building recognized as a significant historic property. It’s the only building, we think, in the world, let alone the U.S., where the building itself is a working example of the product the company makes, Stuller says. His group has gathered support from a range of preservation groups, including the Sierra Club of Connecticut, the Cultural Landscape Foundation, and Docomomo US. [Photo: M3Media Productions] Former Timex employees are also supportive of the preservation effort. Lou Nugai worked in computer operations for Timex from 1968 until his retirement in 2012, spending time both in the company’s previous headquarters in an office park on the edge of town and in the current building from 2001 onward. It was nice. The floor plan was open. There was good visibility. I liked it quite a bit, he says, noting it was a particular improvement on the previous headquarters. They were completely opposite. I wouldn’t say it was a dungeon, but it wasn’t as bright or cheerful as Watch Hill. Last August Save Historic Middlebury made a formal application to the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office to have the building added to the National Register of Historic Places. When we applied to put the building on the register, not surprisingly the developer who owns the building said, no, we don’t want you to put it on, Stuller says. But because anybody can apply for a building to be included on the National Register, Stuller and his group moved forward. In December, the application was denied at the state level, ostensibly because the building is not at least 50 years old, a general guideline often used to gauge a building’s historic character. It’s one particular person at the state level who just doesn’t like new buildings, Stuller says. Save Historic Middlebury is amending its application and plans to reapply. (The group also briefly filed a lawsuit under the Connecticut Environmental Policy Act to stave off demolition, but withdrew the suit in December.) Timex plas to vacate the building this spring and move into another office building in nearby Shelton. Once it’s vacant, theoretically the property developer could knock it down, Stuller says. Timex did not respond to requests for comment. [Photo: M3Media Productions] In the meantime, other groups in Middlebury have lobbied to stop the development project that would result in the Timex building’s demolition. The Middlebury Small Town Alliance has led a lawsuit against the distribution center’s developers. It doesn’t match our community, says Jennifer Mahr, president of the alliance. Her organization is opposed to the distribution center, but is also in favor of preserving the Timex building. A lot of us agree that something else could be done on that property as is, says Mahr, who was subsequently elected to the town’s governing Board of Selectmen. It’s a perfectly fine building. In January, the group got a favorable ruling from the local superior court judge, who decided that permits issued to the developers were in violation of the town’s wetlands and zoning regulations, effectively halting the project. But an appeal is now being prepared. Lawyers for the developer declined to comment. I’ll be surprised if the appellate court takes the case, Mahr says. I do think that their appeal has run out of steam. Even if the distribution center project falls through, Stuller and his group of volunteer preservationists are concerned that the Timex building is still in danger. He says the group plans to filed its amended National Register application directly to the National Park Service within the next month or two. They’re hoping for a positive response the second time around, but aren’t relying on protection from the top down. Stuller says the building’s fate may hinge on how much support he can gather from the local community and beyond. Once we continue to beat this drum and get the word out, he says, I think there’s decent odds we can convince the people that do control the building to change their plans.
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E-Commerce
Coral reefs are vital to the health of the oceans, but in recent years they’ve been decimated by climate change, pollution, and overfishing. While this has been widely covered, a new documentary sheds light on the groundbreaking efforts to restore these fragile ecosystems, and the scientists and communities working to bring them back to life. Reef Builders showcases the work of the Sheba Hope Grows initiative, part of one of the largest coral reef restoration efforts globally, led by Mars Sustainable Solutions. Sheba, a cat food brand owned by global conglomerate Mars Inc., has been supporting reef restoration through its Hope Grows program since 2019. Threats Endangering Coral Reefs As environmental disasters intensify in a warming climate, the destruction of coral reefs can be overlooked. Oceans are key to world health as they regulate the climate and weather, provide food, and support billions of people around the globe. Coral reefs are probably the most important ecosystem that drives the health of oceans. A quarter of all marine life is found on coral reefs, although they occupy a very small percentage of the ocean surface, says David Smith, chief marine scientist and senior director at Mars Sustainable Solutions, a program run by Mars Global, which tackles environmental threats through science-based actions. The other side of the story, unfortunately, is that they’re on the edge of extinction. The best science that we have today suggests that we could lose up to 95% of coral reefs in the next 20 years. Destructive fishing practices, water pollution, and land development all contribute to reef degradation, while climate change intensifies natural threats like ocean acidification and marine heat waves, which lead to coral bleaching, according to Smith. Just this week, the International Coral Reef Initiative announced that 84% of the world’s coral reefs have been affected by the worst bleaching event ever. [Image: courtesy AMV/Stream] Work Behind the Restoration MSS has worked on coral reef restoration since 2006, investing millions in research, builds, and community engagement. It says approximately 1.3 million coral fragments and 87,000 “reef stars” (metal structures designed to support coral growth) have been installed, all using locally sourced materials. In collaboration with local communities, organizations, and stakeholders, restoration sites are carefully chosen based on both need and feasibility. Teams then deploy reef stars to create expansive, interconnected webs across degraded reef areas. This approach enables coverage of an area the size of a basketball court within days, with dozens of reef stars installed each hour. These structures help stabilize loose coral rubble and provide a solid foundation for coral to grow. [Image: courtesy AMV/Stream] After a few years, corals colonize the reef stars, eventually integrating them into the natural reef. The result is a restored habitat for fish and invertebrates, alongside the return of native coral species. Many coral reefs around the world have got to a stage where they’re not able to recover without any assistance, and that’s where restoration comes in to aid the recovery in those systems that have lost their ability to recover naturally, Smith says. [Image: courtesy AMV/Stream] The first Sheba Hope Grows project was launched in 2019 in Salisi Besar, a reef off the coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Within five years, the reefs had grown back. The organization now uses it as a model to show the impact reef stars can have. That success proves that large-scale restoration is possible, says Mindy Barry, Shebas global VP of marketing. That’s what gives you hope, and that’s what ideally will inspire consumers to say this is an issue that not only matters, that I need to care about, but there are things that can be done. [Image: courtesy AMV/Stream] The Making of Reef Builders Reef Builders follows coastal communities in Indonesia, Hawaii, Kenya, and Australia that are working to restore their disappearing coral reefs, essential for their food and livelihood. “There’s a huge science program that underpins the restoration, Smith says. But actually what was unique, and one of the most rewarding parts of my job, is when you have that knowledge, you’ve done that research, but then you talk to the people who are at the coral face, which is actually in the local community with harbors that depend on that reef. This intersection of science and community was at the heart of the project featured in Reef Builders, which now spans 72 restoration sites across the world. Coral reefs form a natural belt around the planet stretching across the world’s oceans, but they’re concentrated most heavily in the Indo-Pacific. Within this belt, distinct regions emerge, each with its own unique ecological and social characteristics. The team selected sites to ensure broad representation of these different regions, focusing on areas where strong local community involvement could drive meaningful restoration. It’s not us necessarily restoring. It’s those communities that are restoring,” Smith says. “What we can do, and what we’ve done, is demonstrate that it’s possible to restore a reef effectively, rapidly, in a way that’s accessible to local communities around the world. While each region has its own environmental challenges, the human stories remain strikingly similar. The emotion of the individuals, of those local members whose lives were being impacted by the loss really shines through, Smith says. It’s that beautiful combination between, yes, you’ve got all the white-coated science and numbers and spreadsheets but actually, ultimately, it’s people’s problems. People are there to try and find a solution for it. [Image: courtesy AMV/Stream] Call to Action People often underestimate the crisis facing coral reefs. According to a Sheba survey conducted by Wakefield Research, 70% of people believe that coral reefs have little to no impact on their daily lives. But reefs are essential ecosystems that support a wide variety of fish species, many of which are commercially valuable and eaten by people around the world. Reefs also play a crucial role in producing a substantial amount of the oxygen humans rely on. Between 1957 and 2007, research shows that more than 50% of coral reefs vanished. But the crisis is escalating, and so is the need for action. Barry says that through the documentary Sheba aims to rally people to recognize that saving coral reefs is not a solitary mission but a collective effort. Smith echoes that goal. Who’s going to start to make those first steps on that journey? And then who can you bring along with you? he asks. I hope that people feel that’s a trajectory that we can get on together.” Reef Builders is available to stream worldwide on Prime Video. Through June 29, Amazon will donate $1 for every hour of the documentary thats streamed in the U.S.up to $100,000to the Kuleana Coral Restoration foundation in Hawaii.
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E-Commerce
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