In February Kadar Yusuf Haji Ali, a worker at the Jennie-O Turkey Store in Faribault, sat down for a cup of coffee with an organizer from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789. A week later the Somali immigrant was fired from the slaughterhouse.
Wal-Mart is threatening to fire pro-union workers at its store in the Midway neighborhood of St. Paul, according to a complaint filed today with the National Labor Relations Board. The charges, filed by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789, allege that starting on June 11 corporate representatives began telling employees that they could easily acquire a list of union backers and that those people would lose their jobs.
Starbucks has repeatedly violated labor laws in its Twin Cities stores, the National Labor Relations Board has determined. The federal agency’s Minneapolis office recently ruled that 16 charges, filed by a Starbucks employee at the Mall of America, have merit.
About a dozen former and current Starbucks workers gathered outside the coffee chain’s outlet at the intersection of Nicollet and Franklin Avenues on Thursday morning. They carried placards that read “Justice for Baristas” and “Starbucks Workers Union,” circling the sidewalk in the single-digit temperatures. “Starbucks Union here to stay,” they chanted. “These lates are union made.” The event coincided with the filing of 11 labor violation charges against the company with the National Labor Relations Board.
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