By most accounts Starbucks is a great place to work. The money's ok and there's the possibility of medical benefits, which is sadly unheard of at any other service industry employer not named Dick's Drive In, so there is a strong temptation to ignore it when news of Starbucks employees unionizing comes around.

"They don't know how good they have it - Try Wal-Mart."

"They're hipsters playing Wobblie."

"It's only two stores out of how many in the US?"

Probably all true and valid. Yesterday's news that a Starbucks location in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood is unionizing will get a few reactions like the above, but generally it won't be noticed at all (although the fact that Crain's is reporting the story would seem to contradict that). The story will get a few more blog mentions and go away for a while, and most people who happen across it will either dismiss organized labor altogether or rag on the burgeoning unionistas for sneaking onto the shoulders of giants, but you have to think that deep within the bowels of Starbucks HQ someone's priorities are being rearranged to take care of this. Because it seems like something that could catch on, not that Starbucks is particularly malodorous or anything, but they're definitely way out there in the public eye and exactly the kind of target that every young 'Marx Of The Service Industry' salivates over.

The temptation to end this post with a diatribe of our own about how the switch from manufacturing jobs for young and/or unskilled labor to service industry jobs has decimated the middle class in this country is..nearly...irresistible. But we will resist, because we don't really know shit and it's more of a feeling we have anyway. Either the service economy is creating unsustainable income inequalities in this country or it's going to rain soon, but something's going on up in Seattlest's trick knee.

From Crain's:

The workers at 2759 W. Logan Blvd. announced Tuesday night that they were affiliating with the Industrial Workers of the World Starbucks Workers Union in an effort to increase hourly pay, have a guaranteed number of work hours per week and to reinstate employees who they claim were fired for union organizing activity. Union representatives declined to disclose membership numbers.

“We want a better place to work and a positive workplace,” said Joe Tessone, a Starbucks employee and co-organizer of the Logan Square store. “We want a living wage.”