Bombs, Barristas, and All That Follows

Wobblies battle bosses for a great cup of coffee

Shawn Macomber | October 9, 2006

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After twenty minutes of this, the raucously defiant crowd rounded back to the front of the cinema where I asked the first Landmark worker I saw whether she wasn't a bit nervous slagging the boss so hard in front of her place of employment.

"I'm a projectionist. They need me more than I need them. It would take at least two weeks to train someone to take my place," she scoffed, sparking a new, ear-splitting (by now well-worn) chant of "We don't need the boss! The boss needs us!"

And my career as an accidental proletarian revolutionary received another boost.

The protest's point apparently made, we retired to Grassroots House—a home base for several local left-wing groups–for Tofu Pups, discussion and entertainment. Posters, stickers and flyers advertising various causes were plastered on every wall. Huge piles of literature struggled from the floor towards the ceiling. Out back a large sheet hung against the wall and before long scenes from the Oakland General Strike of 1946 were being projected. Cheers broke out at every picture indicating a city brought to a complete impasse. What's not to love for a bunch of union agitators? All commerce halted, everyone had the day off and the only way you could get into the giant party downtown was with a union card.

Next up was a short documentary on the Starbucks workers' struggle, "Together We Win," which laid out some egregious examples of corporate union-busting activities. "They had a guy dress up as a manager and come to the store and say he was a manager and he would buy the workers pizza and give out Mets tickets and gym passes," a former Starbucks employee related. "We were getting pizza on an everyday basis at the time." The horrors imposed on the labor movement, it seems have not come to an end. "And they were threatening workers could lose their jobs if they joined a union. A bunch of phony baloney, basically. They wanted to enforce rules that have never been enforced before." Such as firing people over till shortages, which, we are assured by our celluloid Fellow Worker were "probably rigged on the computer by the management and managers."

There were other issues as well. A Wiccan explained how her Starbucks manager's request that she remove a large pentagram medallion was discrimination based on religion. "We're never given 40 hours a week," another employee complained. "On top of that if we go into overtime, it's a disciplinary offense; we can receive a write-up for that."

None of this exactly veers into The Jungle territory, but I'll give the Starbucks Union credit for making the most out of pizza parties and pentagrams.

"Please stand with us so we can march proudly one day—Landmark workers, Starbucks workers, Wal-Mart workers, McDonald's workers—under the banner reading ‘IWW Abolition of the wage system,'" Gross had shouted in closing back at Landmark.

No offence, but if the wage system is abolished and you choose to work at one of the aforementioned establishments it might be time to revaluate the cost-benefit paradigm you're applying in your life. You would think when the Vanguard of the Revolution internalized Marx's maxim "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," they had higher hopes for their ultimate abilities than latte slinger or popcorn jockey.