Nation
Starbucks workers strike at more than 100 U.S. stores
Starbucks workers at more than 100 U.S. stores are on strike Thursday in their largest labor action since a campaign to unionize the company’s stores began late last year.
The walkouts coincide with Starbucks’ annual Red Cup Day, when the company gives free reusable cups to customers who order a holiday drink. Workers say it’s often one of the busiest days of the year. Starbucks declined to say how many red cups it plans to distribute.
Workers say they’re seeking better pay, more consistent schedules and higher staffing levels in busy stores. Stores in 25 states planned to take part in the labor action, according to Starbucks Workers United, the group organizing the effort. Strikers are handing out their own red cups with union logos.
Starbucks, which opposes the unionization effort, said it is aware of the walkouts and respects its employees’ right to lawfully protest. The Seattle company noted that the protests are happening at a small number of its 9,000 company-run U.S. locations.
“We remain committed to all partners and will continue to work together, side-by-side, to make Starbucks a company that works for everyone,” the company said Thursday in a statement.
Some workers planned to picket all day while others will do shorter walkouts. The union said the goal is to shut stores down during the strikes, and noted that the company usually has difficulty staffing during Red Cup Day because it’s so busy.
Willow Montana, a shift manager at a Starbucks store in Brighton, Massachusetts, planned to strike because Starbucks hasn’t begun bargaining with the store despite a successful union vote in April.
“If the company won’t bargain in good faith, why should we come to work where we are understaffed, underpaid and overworked?” Montana said.
Others, including Michelle Eisen, a union organizer at one of the first stores to organize in Buffalo, New York, said workers are angry that Starbucks promised higher pay and benefits to non-union stores. Starbucks says it is following the law and can’t give union stores pay hikes without bargaining.
At least 257 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize since late last year, according to the National Labor Relations Board. Fifty-seven stores have held votes where workers opted not to unionize.
Starbucks and the union have begun contract talks at 53 stores, with 13 additional sessions scheduled, Starbucks Workers United said. No agreements have been reached so far.
The process has been contentious. Earlier this week, a regional director with the NLRB filed a request for an injunction against Starbucks in federal court, saying the company violated labor law when it fired a union organizer in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The regional director asked the court to direct Starbucks to reinstate the employee and stop interfering in the unionization campaign nationwide.
It was the fourth time the NLRB has asked a federal court to intervene. In August, a federal judge ruled that Starbucks had to reinstate seven union organizers who were fired in Memphis, Tennessee. A similar case in Buffalo has yet to be decided, while a federal judge ruled against the NLRB in a case in Phoenix.
Meanwhile, Starbucks has asked the NLRB to temporarily suspend all union elections at its U.S. stores, citing allegations from a board employee that regional officials improperly coordinated with union organizers. A decision in that case is pending.
New York
Mary Trump appeals ruling nixing suit against Donald Trump
NEW YORK (AP) — Mary Trump asked an appeals court on Wednesday to overturn a judge’s decision to reject her claims that her uncle Donald Trump and two of his siblings defrauded her of millions of dollars in a 2001 family settlement.
The lawsuit had been tossed out Monday by Robert R. Reed, a state court justice in Manhattan. Mary Trump had sought unspecified damages from her relatives, who had denied any fraud occurred.
Two days later, attorney Roberta Kaplan appealed the decision to a state appeals court, citing multiple errors.
Reed said lawyers for former President Trump, his sister Maryanne Trump Barry, and for the estate of his deceased brother Robert S. Trump had shown that Mary Trump signed releases at the time of the settlement freeing her relatives from any future claims by her.
“These documents clearly and unambiguously released defendants from unknown claims including fraud claims,” Reed wrote. “There is no indication that the parties intended to limit the releases to known claims at the time they executed the releases and settlement agreement.”
Kaplan said in a statement that the ruling was “obviously disappointing, especially since it comes so late — more than two years after our case was filed.”
A lawyer for the former president didn’t return a message seeking comment.
The lawsuit had alleged that Mary Trump, a psychologist, was duped and manipulated by her uncles and aunt, a former federal judge, to reach the agreement pertaining to real estate business interests she inherited along with her brother when her father, Fred Trump Jr., died in 1981.
According to the lawsuit, Donald Trump and his siblings devalued Mary Trump’s interests, which included a share of hundreds of New York City apartments, by millions of dollars even before Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump Sr., died on June 25, 1999.
After the family patriarch’s death, Mary Trump and her brother filed objections to the will and Donald Trump and his siblings “ratcheted up the pressure” to settle by cutting off health insurance to their niece and nephew, the lawsuit said.
It said the action amounted to “unfathomable cruelty” because Fred Trump III’s third child, born hours after Fred Trump Sr.’s funeral, was having seizures and required extensive medical care, including months in a neonatal intensive care unit.
The lawsuit was filed the same year as the publication of Mary Trump’s book: “”Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.”
Kaplan said the appeal of Monday’s ruling has multiple grounds, but one in particular stands out.
“We believe that the court overlooked certain key factual allegations, including that Mary Trump had a metaphorical “gun to her head” since the Trumps cruelly terminated the health insurance necessary to provide life-saving medical care for her then infant nephew,” she said.
Mary Trump has said she learned of the fraud only after a deep analysis of the Trump family financial history by The New York Times that discussed how Donald Trump and his siblings inherited and built fortunes.
