Billy Bragg - Never Cross A Picket Line - Starbucks Workers United - Buffalo, NY on 10/12/22

Billy Bragg - Never Cross A Picket Line - Starbucks Workers United - Buffalo, NY on October 12, 2022
Thank you to Billy Bragg for appearing in Buffalo to support Starbucks Worker United at the Elmwood avenue store - the first in the nation to vote for Unionization. / sbworkersunited
Playlist of my videos from this event - • Billy Bragg - Starbuck...
Buffalo News 10/10/22: buffalonews.com/business/loca...
The Starbucks union's picket line will get some support from an international rock star this week.
Billy Bragg will join Starbucks Workers United outside of the Elmwood Avenue Starbucks at 1 p.m. Wednesday and perform.
Bragg is a politically active British musician who specializes in folk-punk protest songs. He's performing in Troy on Tuesday and has a day off before performing Thursday in Toronto.
Workers at the store are on strike to protest a flurry of write-ups that Starbucks workers say are retaliatory discipline targeting pro-union workers.
The Elmwood location was the first store to unionize and is now seeking a contract. Workers say rules are being forced discriminately and inconsistently. For example, worker Will Westlake said he was fired for refusing to remove a suicide prevention pin. He wore pins without incident before unionizing began, the union said.
Buffalo News 10/12/22: buffalonews.com/business/loca...
Unionized Starbucks workers put some star power behind their cause when they welcomed British musician Billy Bragg to perform at their picket line on Elmwood Avenue Wednesday afternoon.
Bragg is a politically active British musician who specializes in folk-punk protest songs. On a break between gigs in Troy and Toronto, Bragg stopped in town to lend his support to Starbucks Workers United.
His folk-punk protest songs backed the workers' strike at the store over what they said is retaliatory and sometimes fabricated discipline against union organizers.
Elmwood Avenue was the first Starbucks store in the country to successfully unionize. It is now seeking a contract.
www.billybragg.co.uk
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www.amazon.co.uk/Billy-Bragg/...
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#BillyBragg #SBWorkersUnited #StarbucksBuffalo

[@TheBLGL]

How do these workers not know this song? Look away, look away down south to San Diego, you must never cross a picket line… technically this is an illegal strike, never cross a picket line. Well, technically workers have no rights, you must never cross a picket line.

[@yorkshiremgtow1773]

Why must you 'never cross a picket line'? What if you disagree with the strike?

[@Hitman.13.]

​@@yorkshiremgtow1773Then you lack solidarity and class consciousness, you hurt the effectiveness of the strike to make management sit and negotiate, you provide a relief to them, making you a scab...The corporate propaganda during the last 70 years destroyed all sense of solidarity between the workers, workers now act like temporarily embarassed millionaires, they relate more to Oligarch billionaires than to their fellow working class brothers...The fight was never left vs right but top and bottom! Wake up! Our forefathers literally fought and died for the rights we take for granted now, if you can't even respect picket lines, then you need to look in the mirror and learn more about class struggle and labor history! None of the rights we have were given to us by the good hearts of companies, but by sacrifice of fellow workers!

[@johndicksonkaraoke2554]

Solidarity Forever ✊

[@yorkshiremgtow1773]

'never cross a picket line' isn't a piece of advice. It's an order, from people who have no right to order you around.

[@johndicksonkaraoke2554]

@@yorkshiremgtow1773you cross the picket 🪧 during a legal strike your a scab.

[@hannesmayer3716]

It's an ethical prinicple. Like the Golden Rule, or "Don't let people starve", or "Don't burn down buildings for no reason".

[@yorkshiremgtow1773]

@@hannesmayer3716 it's not an ethical principle- not entirely. Let's say you work for a government department. You realise that your department is pointless, like some of them are. They go on strike for even more money. You realise that the increase in wages will need to be met by making other workers poorer. In this case, it would be more ethical to cross the picket line and go into work.

[@hannesmayer3716]

Yeah, and you can certainly construct examples in which the Golden Rule is wrong, or letting someone starve is the only viable option.