Workers Power Day – February 26, 2022

⇒ Solidarity with Starbucks, Amazon, and all workers who are organizing and fighting back

⇒ Fight against racism and all forms of oppression and exploitation  – these struggles are part and parcel of the workers movement. Black Lives Matter!

⇒ Unite these many struggles into one powerful force!

Organize an action in your area in solidarity with this growing movement!

Starbucks workers are leading an electrifying drive to organize the major coffee chain, often with several stores announcing they’re joining this growing movement every day.

From coast to coast and globally, Amazon workers are organizing to build workers’ power at one of the world’s largest and most oppressive corporationsAmazon workers in Staten Island recently filed to hold union elections at two warehouses. The majority Black Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama are engaged in their second union campaign, after the results of the first were tossed out by the National Labor Relations Board based on Amazon’s egregious union busting campaign – which the company still continues in earnest in Bessemer, Staten Island, and elsewhere. 

This recent explosion of union organizing efforts and strikes across the U.S. follows the massive global anti-racist mobilizations in response to the execution of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020. People hit the streets and the movement for Black Lives galvanized many young working class and oppressed people demonstrating against police brutality and systemic racism.

Both the revival of the labor movement and the movement against white supremacy are intrinsically connected as working class issues. It is no coincidence that Starbucks reacted to their workers’ growing union drive by firing organizers in Memphis, Tennessee where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated in 1968 while supporting the union struggle of predominantly Black sanitation workers. That historic Memphis strike began on Feb. 12, 1968. 

Feb. 26 marks the 10 year anniversary of the heinous murder of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. Police and racist vigilantes continue to murder and terrorize Black, Brown and Indigenous communities, LGBTQ+ people, and immigrants, while bosses use racism at our jobs to divide us and extract more profit from our labor. 

Workers Power Day, called for Feb. 26, will uplift the life of Trayvon Martin and countless stolen lives to say clearly: Black Lives Matter! 

Historically, police have served as strike-breakers when companies fail to successfully break union mobilizations by other means. Corporations engaged in vicious racist union busting operations – Amazon, Starbucks and many others – exercise their influence over the state to utilize police to repress workers and maintain white supremacy. 

After nearly three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, workers are increasingly stepping out and fighting back. While corporations rake in record profits and a narrowing number of centi-billionaires, including Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, watch their wealth skyrocket, nearly one million U.S. workers have been left to die by a government and healthcare system that cares more for profits than people.

Millions more workers have had to work in unsafe conditions, risked exposure to themselves or their families, lost their jobs, been evicted from their homes, or have had their communities terrorized by the police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This crisis has hit Black and other workers of color, im/migrants, women, gender oppressed, disabled and trans workers particularly hard. 

New fighting spirit taking hold 

At companies big and small, workers are organizing, going on strike, and exercising their power as workers. From gig workers to domestic workers, tech workers to factory workers, im/migrant workers to sex workers, a new fighting spirit is taking hold. 

From Oakland, California to New York City, education workers are fighting against the closure and privatization of public schools. There is growing recognition that every issue is a worker’s issue, whether it’s a struggle on the job, the fight against white supremacy, struggles for reproductive justice, the fight against gentrification, demands for immigrant justice, mass incarceration or opposition to more U.S. wars. 

This growing workers’ movement has the potential to be transformative and global. 

We encourage you to hold actions on February 26 – Workers Power Day – to unite and show solidarity with these many struggles, and connect with local struggles in your area. Actions could be organized at Whole Foods or other Amazon locations, a Starbucks, or another location of significance.

Fight racism and union busting!

Solidarity with Starbucks, Amazon, and all workers organizing!

Black Lives Matter!

California

SAN LUIS OBISPO

Saturday, Feb 26 – 11am

Rally outside Whole Foods

Whole Foods SLO, 1531 Froom Ranch Way, San Luis Obispo, CA

Contact loni.kirk@gmail.com for additional details

 

Connecticut

NEW HAVEN

Saturday, Feb 26 – 2pm

African American History Month Youth March and Car Caravan & Worker Power Day

Troupe School, 259 Edgewood Ave, New Haven, CT

Organized by Peoples World, Communist Party USA, New Haven Rising, and labor groups | Contact Lisa Bergmann: (203) 687-9455 & Jaime Myers-McPhail: 203-710-1084, jaime@newhavenrising.org for additional details

RSVP & more details

 

Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS

Saturday, Feb 26 – 11am sign making | 12pm rally and leafletting

Rally and leafletting

Gather at 1001 Elysian Fields Ave, New Orleans, LA

Contact the New Orleans Workers Assembly at nola@southernworker.org for additional details

 

Massachusetts

BOSTON

Saturday, Feb 26 – 2pm

Rally & speak out

Starbucks, 63-65 Court Street, Government Center, Boston, MA 02108

Organized by Team Solidarity of USW Local 8751

FB event

 

HADLEY

Saturday, Feb 26 – 1pm

Rally & speak out

Starbucks, 344 Russell St. (Route 9), Hadley, MA

Organized by Western Mass CODEPINK, contact pakiwieland@gmail.com for additional details

New York

BUFFALO

Saturday, Feb 26 – 1pm

Speak out & rally

Corner of Niagara and Porter, Buffalo, NY

Contact buffalo.wwp@gmail.com for additional details

 

NEW YORK

Saturday, Feb 26 – 12pm

Rally & march

Gather at Barclay’s Center, Brooklyn, NY

Workers Power Day cosponsored by NYC Coalition of Black Trade Unionists 646-523-8484, Workers Assembly Against Racism 415-845-6100, Amazon Labor Union , & December 12th Movement, Teamsters Local 808 718-389-1900

IG link

 

Ohio

CLEVELAND

Saturday, Feb 26 – 1pm

Rally at Public Square, march past W 6th Starbucks store

Gather at Public Square, downtown Cleveland

Contact Support Amazon Workers – Cleveland at grevatt.m@gmail.com or 216-534-6435

 

Oregon

PORTLAND

Saturday, Feb 26 – 1pm

Rally at two unionzing Starbucks stores

Gather at Starbucks, 7315 Garden Home Rd, Portland, OR

Contact Workers World Party – Portland at portland@workers.org

RSVP & more details on FB

 

Pennsylvania

 

BETHLEHEM, PA

Saturday, Feb 26 – 3pm

Solidarity ordering with Starbucks workers

502 E 3rd St, Bethlehem, PA

Contact Kathryn H at kathrynh1649@yahoo.com for additional details

 

PHILADELPHIA

Saturday, Feb 26 – 2pm

Rally at Starbucks, march to Whole Foods

9th & South Street, Philadelphia, PA

Contact philly@workersolidarity.net for more details

FB event

 

Virginia

 

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA

Saturday, Feb 26 – 2pm

Leaflet actions at multiple Starbucks locations

2pm – meet at 465 Investors Pl, Virginia Beach, VA

4pm – meet at 936 Independence Blvd, Virginia Beach, VA

Contact Matt Morales at 757-401-3128 for additional details