Remember the anti-globalization movement?

Once upon a time, a seemingly unstoppable surge of globalized grassroots activism arose with the clear goal of smashing corporate power and replacing it with people power, once and for all, all around the world. And, so goes a certain mythology, it all got off the ground right here in Seattle. (You the man, Seattle!) But then one fateful day, some really stupid apocalyptic shit went down elsewhere in the world, and suddenly a certain snowblind fratboy became the most powerful person on the planet, and suddenly lots of activists worldwide had lots of strange new fires to put out--not to mention a nascent police state in the good old USA to worry about. Alas! All was lost for the struggle against corporate globalization!

Or so it once seemed. Recently it seems safe to say that all the scary and sweeping psycho-political drama and trauma of America's post-9/11 imperialist hissy fit is finally grinding to a halt. Rays of light are appearing through the clouds: high-level indictments, sinking poll numbers, John Murtha calling bullshit on the war.

And, with the Boy Emperor lately looking less like a rampaging Caesar and more like a dangling Pinocchio, the climate seems right for lots of social justice activists to start coming back home to their pre-9/11 agenda of grasping corporate power at its roots and weeding it out of the world. Oh, but where to begin?

How about staging the world's first workers' strike against our old corporate friend Starbucks? That's exactly what has just happened, six long years after a group of alleged anarchists here in Seattle discovered that smashing Starbucks windows isn't actually the same thing as smashing capitalism. So, did Seattle lead the way in socking it to the corporate ogre this time? Nice guess. Try again.

Remember New Zealand? That itsy-bitsy liberal paradise many of us joked about moving to last November? It was there, just last month, that a Starbucks workers' strike took place--amazingly, the first ever in the company's 35-year history. On Nov. 23 in Auckland, workers at ten Starbucks stores citywide walked off the job in a spontaneous act of worker solidarity. The event began as a small-scale, one-hour protest at one store, on Auckland's bohemian Karangahape Road, organized by the local Unite chapter and intended simply to raise public awareness about New Zealand's poverty-level minimum wage for fast-food industry workers. Through the magic of instant text messaging, it quickly became a citywide strike when more than 30 workers at nine other Auckland Starbucks stores spontaneously walked out after learning that Starbucks managers from around Auckland were being brought in to cover the shifts of the striking workers at the Karangahape Road store.

The strikers, joined by about 150 supporters and staff from local KFC, Pizza Hut, and McDonald's outlets, continued their solidarity throughout the day despite a management threat to fire any worker who did not return to work within an hour. The strike followed several months of Unite negotiations with Restaurant Brands, which owns Starbucks, KFC, and Pizza Hut in New Zealand.

According to Simon Oosterman, Unite organizer and campaign coordinator for the Auckland strike, Starbucks workers in New Zealand start at NZ$10 (roughly US$7) an hour--only 50 cents above the minimum wage. Also, these workers' hours are not guaranteed and have often been cut to as few as 20 hours a week. In addition, many of these workers must collect government handouts in order to make ends meet--shades of Wal-Mart's infamous tactic of encouraging its workers to use state social services in lieu of providing decent wages and benefits. The goal of the Unite campaign is to secure a minimum of NZ$12 an hour--as well as guaranteed hours--for all Starbucks staff in New Zealand, including currently lower-paid underage workers.

The Auckland strike was preceded by another noteworthy action by Starbucks workers in New York City on Nov. 18, when 25 Starbucks baristas and supporters at the chain's Union Square location in Manhattan surrounded the store manager to publicly announce their membership in the newly-formed NYC-based Starbucks Workers Union, itself organized by the Industrial Workers of the World (another uncanny Seattle connection!). The Union Square store is the third in NYC to join the SWU. Workers at all three SWU stores are demanding a guaranteed minimum of 30 hours of work per week--the minimum necessary to qualify for health benefits--and an end to anti-union activity by Starbucks.

Both the New Zealand strike and the NYC unionization drive have their roots in the Starbucks Corporation's status as one of the few companies in the world with no full-time employment for non-managerial employees. This arrangement, an initiative of Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, forces workers to deal with a constantly fluctuating number of work hours, and therefore, constantly fluctuating income. Note that this is a company that claims in its P.R. to prioritize corporate social responsibility, and whose mission statement pledges to "provide a great work environment" for its employees. Contrary to such P.R., Starbucks has in fact revealed a strong anti-union bias in its deeds. In response to the SWU's formation in March 2004, Starbucks launched a relentless anti-union campaign. They have already been hit with a complaint from the National Labor Relations Board for alleged threats, bribes and surveillance aimed at defeating the SWU. In this complaint, dated Nov. 18 (the same day as the Union Square action), the NLRB summarized workers' allegations that Starbucks had illegally resisted the organization of the SWU. For example, according to the complaint, in one NYC store in May 2004, a regional director of operations posted a message threatening "employees with loss of wages and benefits if they voted for the union." The NLRB has scheduled a hearing regarding the complaint for Feb. 7 in Manhattan.

Starbucks, well-known for its aggressive pursuit of global double mocha market supremacy, has certainly globalized its brand and its product. Will Starbucks ever live up to its lofty P.R. and actively seek to globalize workers' rights? Don't hold your breath. It's old history that real social justice always comes from the ground up. Starbucks workers and their supporters in New Zealand and NYC have taken a great initiative that activists in other parts of the globe would do well to follow.

So how about Seattle? If Starbucks workers here were to seek unionization, and if resistance was the corporate response, how would our alleged ultra-liberal mecca collectively respond? The sad fact is, this town has become frustratingly sleepy lately in terms of serious activism. Here's something to remember: Starbucks and the IWW both loom large in Seattle's history and identity. Perhaps it's time for the locals to give these two a proper introduction?