The Starbucks Unions' Next Fight
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2022
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Unions have won more elections in 2022 than they have in nearly 20 years, and they’re making in-roads in high-turnover, retail and service jobs like Starbucks, Chipotle and Amazon. As corporate leaders close down stores, fire union stalwarts, and stall bargaining, unionized workers fear they may never get a contract.
Guest: Rani Molla, senior correspondent at Recode covering business, technology, and the future of work.
If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Amicus—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This episode is brought to you by EA Sports with PlayStation 5. |
| 0:04.2 | Get closer with EA Sports FC 24. |
| 0:06.9 | Closer to 30 leagues, 700 teams and 19,000 fully licensed players. |
| 0:12.1 | Closer to football with game-changing high-permotion of the technology. |
| 0:15.9 | Closer than ever to the world's game. |
| 0:18.1 | Playful November 1st to become a founder and get exclusive benefits in EA Sports FC 24 and beyond. |
| 0:24.8 | Visit easports.com slash FC to learn more. |
| 0:28.4 | Rated Peggy Free. |
| 0:30.0 | There's this tape of what it sounded like when a Starbucks in Buffalo, New York became |
| 0:40.6 | the first shop to unionize. |
| 0:43.0 | This was back in December. |
| 0:45.9 | This is about 20 people, most of them really young, in jeans and flannel, and it's like |
| 0:54.3 | they've just watched their hometown basketball team dominate at the final four. |
| 0:59.7 | If they could rush the court, rip off their shirts and twirl them above their heads, they |
| 1:03.6 | would totally do that. |
| 1:08.0 | Rani Mola, who reports over at Recode. |
| 1:20.1 | She says this release of energy, it came after weeks of mounting tension. |
| 1:25.4 | The union organizers thought they had the votes. |
| 1:28.3 | They weren't that many of them after all. |
| 1:30.2 | But in the weeks beforehand, they'd been inundated by visitors from corporate headquarters. |
| 1:36.0 | It's absolutely a stressful situation when you have the people who pay your bills, who |
| 1:41.4 | are responsible for your livelihood, coming in and working with you very intensely all |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.