As you know, folks in Chicago have been organizing at Starbucks. They had plans to go public at their store meeting. Just before that meeting one of them went in to work and found an anti-IWW leaflet posted on a bulletin board by management. Being a good organizer and
up on Starbucks’ anti-union activity, the FW knew this meant a captive audience meeting was coming soon. The FWs prepared themselves for it.

At the meeting the upper management people fed the workers a bunch of company lies (including “there is no union”). When they were done talking they started to wrap up the meeting. The FWs said, actually there’s one other thing we want to talk about. We’re in the union. They went public right then and there.

The management people had been mainly reading the anti-union message off notecards. They were caught off guard by the declaration, sputtering and stuttering and didn’t know what to say. They got very heated, repeating “there is no union.” One of the FWs said “I’m a dues paying member of this union, don’t tell me it doesn’t exist.” Management was flustered and agitated and ended up looking very bad in front of everyone, much worse than the well informed and organized
fellow workers.

All this makes me grin really big. It’s especially great because captive audience meetings can be really devastating, even to a group of workers who are well prepared. To have these FWs not only get through the captive but actually turn it around and take control is wonderful.