Congratulations to SBWU. I hope that you don't have to go as long as we did, but if you do, I will still be cheering you on.

Always make sure your union works for you, and not the other way around. Stay radical, stay vigilant, stay organized even after you're in the union.

Solidarity forever.

I am genuinely happy that Starbucks workers are standing up for themselves on such a scale. It's unambiguously good. We Love To See It.

But for them to discredit the blood, sweat, and tears my comrades and I put into organizing and maintaining our strike, it just sucks so fucking bad.

But the disrespect that our historic 64 day 24/7 picket line got from the higher-ups in the national union fucking hurt. It killed me to fight the people who were supposed to be supporting us against bigotry and countless labor law violations. Where was the fucking solidarity?

I was ready to take this misery to my grave in support of the idealists who still populate the rank-and-file of SBWU. My heart and unconditional, undying solidarity will always go out to them. I have nothing but respect for the hard work they put in. If you're one of them, stay strong, stay radical.

I stuck it out another year, did my best to make a difference and advocate for my store and region, but nothing changed. I had to quit for my sanity. The hardest part about quitting that soul-rending dogdick job was admitting that the work I'd done with the union had been dismantled from the inside.

Once they did decide to actively involve themselves in our affairs, member investment and morale took a total nosedive. The region floundered while they restructured everything, ousted or disempowered some of the best organizers I've ever met. I don't know how the region is doing now, 3 years later.

What matters, though, is that our region was incredibly active and incredibly radical, and the national regularly pressured us to tone down our actions. Our actions worked. They got the public involved, they kept our members involved, they won tangible changes, and we were told to chill out.

For the first year or so of activity in our region, the national SBWU gave us absolute barebones support.

I have a few ideas as to why, but I'm not going to hash that out here. I don't want to speculate on that in public with ppl who weren't there.

I generally don't like to criticize labor unions outside of private conversation, for the sake of solidarity and presenting a united front against capital. Generally speaking, any critiques I have of unions come from a committed and disciplined opposition to capitalism in all forms.

But this sucks.

The national union stopped supporting us pretty early on in the strike, leaving us to depend on the solidarity we had built among our regional branch. The company lied out the ass about what they had been doing to push us to strike, and claimed that they made no concessions. That was simply untrue.

I'm gonna be thinking about that last line for years.

Me trying not to smile when I say "this is where I get off"

I would bitch and moan! And I'd get over it! Because I'm mature enough to be trusted with a motor vehicle!

But no, get rid of airbags and child safety locks or whatever. Make cars out of tinfoil and drywall and give them all 36" touch screens that play tiktoks and gas station ads.

Make a little drawer you gotta lock your phone inside of to make it connect to maps or music or w/e. You gotta work the music like a radio or a CD changer. You gotta plug yr destination in before you lock the phone in the drawer. People will bitch and moan like they did with seatbelts but who cares

The Purpose of a Slide is What It Does