Starbucks & Amazon Take Position As Top Unions Busters In The U.S.

Starbucks is fighting unionization efforts at their stores, and the company appears willing to break the law to achieve their goal. Plus, the National Labor Board has uncovered even more evidence of Amazon trying to bust up unions by threatening workers. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Check out our merch by visiting our store: https://www.buyrof.com/ Subscribe to our podcast: http://www.ROFPodcast.com Become a member today!:    / @theringoffire   Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!:   / theringoffire   Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content! Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel:    / theringoffire   Be sociable! Follow us on: Facebook:   / ringoffireradio   Twitter:   / ringoffiremedia   Instagram:   / ringoffirenetwork   *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Starbucks is fighting unionization efforts at their stores and the company appears to be willing to break the law to get there. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins joins me now talk about this in many other issues. And the guy I say is honestly the best voice in progressive media. I really do mean that. Thank you. Everybody, I say it a lot, people I wanna make the point. You, you're really good at what you do. Well, thank you. And, and so I appreciate that. I, it's, it's a pleasure talking to you. I want to ask you about this. As I looked about it, as I looked at this story, the most incredible thing that I found is that they've been down this road before. We've seen big corporations get spanked for doing exactly what Amazon is doing. I mean, yeah, well I say Amazon. Well, yeah. Amazon's doing it. Starbucks is doing it. But I looked at this it's, it's their video, the, the things they can't do. The employees can't take videos of their shop. They can't take photos. We're gonna threaten their benefits. We're gonna threaten their pay raise. We're going to, we're going to have surveillance. We're gonna watch 'em with cameras and then we're gonna terminate 'em to set an example. All this is Starbucks, it's Amazon all over, isn't it? Right. I mean that, that actually we have done plenty of segments where Amazon was the carbon copy. They did everything you're mentioning here. And now of course, Starbucks says, well, hey, Amazon had some success with it. Let's try it ourselves. And so the National Labor Relations Board has hit them with this massive lawsuit, alleging at least that we know of 200 instances of breaking federal labor laws. And a lot of it, of course, does have to do with the retaliation against these employees. You know, firing anybody who says, hey, what if we started a union? Starbucks immediately steps in and says, hey, what if you didn't have a job here anymore? Yeah, exactly. And, and even worse, last week it was revealed that Howard Schultz, the guy that runs Starbucks said on a call, hey, we're gonna give everybody raises except the unionized workforce. We're not giving them any new benefits, but I'm gonna take such good care of all my other non-union employees, which of course that tactic illegal. And that is seen as a, a form of union busting by, by not giving the benefits to everybody. Okay. So he, you know, his big talking point when he put all this together, the whole Starbucks picture is we're partners. A, we're partners and oh, by the way, we're one of the most progressive companies in the market. Really? Progressive company. So, so progressive has a whole new meaning if I look at what this guy did and I look what, what Bezos is doing with Amazon and so many of these tech companies. I mean it, the tech companies plus this, it, it's the same, it's the same foundation every time we see it. Look, people need to look if, if you're watching this and you're, you're, you're wondering what rights do I have? The section seven of the, the NLRA tells you everything that you can and can't do. And I think it's really important that people understand this kind of thing has digressed to where you have Starbucks saying you can't even wear a pin on your, on your shirt that talks about union. That says, I'm a member of a union or I want to, or please start a union. You can't wear a pin like that. Well, no, you can't. But of course you can wear your, you can wear your black lives matter pins. You can wear your, your rainbow pins because we're progressive. Yeah. And we care about only social issues on the surface. And that's how they get away with this crap too, pretending to be progressive companies. They say, well, look, look we're, we're letting you wear these buttons. We support the LGBT community. Yeah.