Description: Starbucks employees in Buffalo have voted to become the first unionized Starbuck’s location in the United States. Former U.S. Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, views this as symbolic of recent labour force trends, where employees are somewhat emboldened, reconsidering their options in the face of the Covid-19 economic and social trends. Starbucks has been famously anti-union, even going so far as to close stores where a certification effort seemed headed for success. It will be interesting to see if Mr. Reich is correct about a rising movement of collective action by workers.

Date:  December 10, 2021; updated December 11, 2021

Source:  theguardian.com

 Link: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/10/this-victory-of-starbucks-employees-in-buffalo-will-reverberate-across-america

Discussion points:

1) Have you or any of your classmates worked for Starbucks? How was the experience?

2) Do you think Canada’s labour markets would be more or less open to unionization compared with those in the United States?

3) Page 1-4 of Wiley’s Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision-Making tells us that unions can be considered as one of the external users of published financial statements. Why would a union be interested in the financial statements of a company?