500 signatures reached
To: ASUCLA Board of Directors
Boot Starbucks from UCLA
Dear ASUCLA Board of Directors:
As students, staff, and faculty of UCLA, we are deeply concerned with our campus’s relationship with Starbucks Corporation, which has engaged in a scorched-earth union-busting campaign against its workers. Starbucks has committed “egregious and widespread” violations of federal labor law, and a federal administrative law judge wrote that the company displayed “a general disregard for employees’ fundamental rights.” Moreover, Starbucks workers have won over 340 union elections across 41 states since December 2021, including in multiple LA locations. Starbucks responded by denying boosts in wages and benefits to unionized workers.
We ask you, as the ultimate decision-makers in regards to dining services at UCLA, to cut ties with Starbucks and end our university’s procurement of its products by requiring ASUCLA to terminate its licensing agreement with Starbucks. Starbucks relies on its 300+ stores on college campuses, and we believe our school should support Starbucks workers by redirecting that power to alternative coffee suppliers. We call upon you to divest from Starbucks corporation and liquidate all of UCLA’s current investments in Starbucks.
Our goal is not something that is unimaginable because it has been done before. In May of this year, students at Cornell University organized a mass email campaign and escalated to a sit-in. After two days Cornell administration relented and announced that they would not be renewing their contract with Starbucks. We believe it is time for UCLA to follow suit and be the next university to say no to Starbucks’ unfair labor practices. Removing Starbucks from our campus and divesting from the corporation would be an incredible show of solidarity with Starbucks Workers United and employees fighting for the right to form a union at Starbucks, as many of the leaders in this movement are either students themselves or recent graduates.
Our campus is a union campus, with faculty, graduate workers, post-graduate workers, student researchers, and staff represented by American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 3299 (AFSCME 3299), University Council - American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT), United Auto Workers Local 2865 (UAW 2865), United Auto Workers 5810 (UAW 5810), and United Auto Workers - Student Researchers United (UAW-SRU). We believe in the fundamental right of workers to form a union, and we believe that companies who violate workers’ rights to organize and collectively bargain should face consequences. At UCLA, we have seen the benefits of strong union contracts for workers and believe that Starbucks workers deserve the same.
It’s time for UCLA to recognize the dignity of workers on its campus and around the world, which would mean preserving the rights of workers to vote for or against union representation without intimidation, unjust pressure, undue delay, or hindrance. We must commit to cutting all campus ties with Starbucks because of their blatant union-busting and repeated violations of federal labor law.
We call for the ASUCLA Board of Directors to end their licensing agreement with Starbucks and invite an alternative coffee provider to replace Starbucks in the Anderson School of Management. In this transition process, we demand no changes occur in the payment, staffing, benefits, or number of hours for the dining services employees working at the above-mentioned café. Additionally, we call for UCLA to completely divest from Starbucks.
Will you stand with us, or will you continue supporting a company that violated federal labor laws hundreds of times?
Why is this important?
Starbucks has a long history of violating federal labor law having been charged by the National Labor Relations Board over a hundred of times for unfair labor practices. The ASUCLA board of directors can at any time with a majority vote terminate or choose not to renew its contracts with Starbucks, yet they gave no response to the UC Student Associations unanimous vote to cut ties with the Starbucks corporation. By refusing to act, ASUCLA has shown where its interests really lie, not with the many students and community members who work at Starbucks, but with the corporate shareholders who are profiting off of the mistreatment of workers. So please join us in calling upon ASUCLA to terminate or refuse to renew its contracts, and most importantly to stand in solidarity with Starbucks workers across the country who are fighting a fair and dignified workplace.