Organizers and Partners,
The recent tide of applications for union elections brought about by your hard work and passion in the struggles for workers’ rights brings hope in these times of economic uncertainty beneath the gluttonous weight of corporate greed. In a time when Starbucks reports record
revenues for Q4 2021 of $8.1 billion, an increase of 31 percent, and promises $20 billion in stock buy-backs to line the pockets of wealthy investors, you, the workers and organizers, are left to survive on starvation wages and lack-luster benefits in the communities you serve.
Along with the workers of this country, whose labor turns the wheels of industry, we stand at the gates of democracy in the workplace ready to tear loose their locks and swing them open. We need now to only work in solidarity to grow this rising tide into a great wave of dual-power that brings these corporations with their greed to their knees so that all workers may share in the fruits of their labor.
We in Star City Workers Club, a formation of the Virginia District of the Communist Party USA, recognize the successes you are having nationwide and wish to support your efforts in our region. From Bristol to Danville and Wise to Lynchburg, we identified 43 potential locations that would benefit from the organizing you have employed from Buffalo, New York, to the Starbucks headquarters in Seattle, Washington. It is our goal to support your ongoing efforts and work to facilitate contact between your organizers and the working-class partners who operate these locations. In line with our Party Program, the members of Star City Workers Club understand the vital role trade unions play not only in guaranteeing fair wages, hours, and benefits but also in ensuring worker safety, negotiating contracts, and influencing pro-labor legislation.
To this end, we extend our hands as workers in Southwestern Virginia in solidarity with the work that has been done and the many struggles yet to come. We can provide feet on the ground and faces to connect with fellow workers in the many locations in our region that
would benefit from joining the Starbucks Workers United movement. We welcome opportunities to volunteer within your organizing efforts, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with local workers in the fights against union-busting tactics from corporations and their lawyers, and to support individuals materially if we can when they come against lost wages and retaliation from a corporation that dishonestly pretends an hourly wage of only $17 per hour is somehow just compensation for generating nearly $30 billion in net revenues in 2021 alone.
Star City Workers Club and the Virginia District of CPUSA stand in solidarity with the partners who generate, with their labor, every dime of revenue being siphoned into the pockets of executives and investors. We ask that you reach out with next steps so we can support your
efforts in Virginia and topple another domino in the direction of worker led workplaces across the country. Thank you for the inspiring work you continue to do and the many hours, days, and months you have sacrificed for your fellow workers. We look forward to sharing the load.
In solidarity,
Ryan Boone
Secretary, Star City Workers Club