Willamette Week is wearing a steel toe boot with a starbucks logo and stomping on the poor

author: T

To everyone who buys starbucks: YOU are the one who is stealing the money directly from the hands of third world country families who desperately need that money for food, medicine and basic survival! Starbucks is known as Starcrooks because they steal from those suffering most!

I am writing in regards to the Willamette Week (Wweek) newspaper article [reference 1].
On their website the article is titled "Thoroughly Starbucked
The world's biggest coffee retailer gets no respect from PDX. Should it?" To question Starbucks is understandable. That, among other things, is the job of any credible media business.

But the actual front page title of the print newspaper, with a circulation of 90,00, read "Why Can't Starbucks Get Any Respect?" (And Why It Should)" That title is written in a manner which promotes Starbucks, like an advertisement, and that is exactly how most of the article was written.

Some of the other Indymedia article responses have been written in a concise manner, but because I am a dirt-poor minority who everyday sees the most brutal bottom line results of what happens, in the faces of my homeless friends, when people are forced into slave-labor like jobs which Starbucks is forcing onto the world and onto minorities, what I have to say won't be as well written because it tears me up inside to know that a newspaper that in the past has actually cared about people, is now wearing a steel toe boot with a starbucks logo and stepping on the faces of minorities and the underclass worldwide!

Because Willamette Week has often described people who speak out against their pro-corporate articles as 'Wweek bashers,' it is urgent to me that I make it clear that I am not bashing Wweek newspaper. The recent Neil Goldschmidt 2-year rape scandal (not a sexual relationship) exposed by the Wweek was excellent especially since such crimes against women/girls often go unpunished, especially by people in power. There were some good follow up pieces on that too {Urgent: The only thing that the follow up left out, which the Portland Tribune covered [reference 1a], is that Goldschmidt is a member of the Oregon Bar association who should be dishonorably disbarred by the Oregon Supreme Court rather than permitted to honorably resign. This is because he was a historically high-ranking sexual predator who politically influenced every woman's ability to create anti-sex offender laws during his reign. Guess we know why there is a time limit to when sex offenders can be prosecuted!} Also, a few years ago Chris Lydgate wrote an excellent article (with follow up pieces) regarding how a dumpster corporation was literally and repeatedly murdering homeless people with no regard at all. The article was excellent in every regard because it not only got in touch with the victims families and portrayed him as the human being that he was, but it also was able to quote some of the cold-hearted and heartless statements made by the corporation. I actually wrote to Chris Lydgate and told him how much I liked it. There was also another story I liked about how racism effects housing. [reference 2]. And among the many other stories in WWeek, Nick Budnick wrote an awesome pieces about budget cuts that hurt the homeless youth. [reference 3]. And many times Wweek has spoken in support of Dignity Village, as can be seen in many links on the Dignity Village website.

But for all the good that WWeek has done, I am still literally nauseated by the existence of the Front page pro-Starbucks article. Towns are banning Starbucks all across the country, and people are working hard everyday to get rid of Starbucks from Portland but the Wweek article critically hurts everyone's ability to do that! The only way that you could ever imagine even a sliver of how much suffering Starbucks causes to minorities in third-world countries is by living several years, dirt poor in the cardboard houses that many Central America farmers live in, because the non-fair trade wages that Starbucks pay are not enough to ever break the cycle of Poverty for those people.

Willamette Week Pro-Starbucks Propaganda #1:

Quote from the article: ""...Starbucks paid an average of $1.20 per pound for higher-grade beans last year. This is only a few cents shy of the per-pound price for coffee that is certified Fair Trade--a designation that comes from a cooperative dedicated to ensuring that farmers earn a fair wage."

A "few cents" shy? Lets put "a few cents" into perspective as minorities and people in thrird-world countries see it. [reference 4]

Here is a quote from the International boycott taco bell webpage:

"Farmworker Conditions

Farmworkers who pick for Florida growers who sell tomatoes to Taco Bell earn between 40-50 cents for every 32-lb bucket of tomatoes they pick. For example, the Immokalee-based "Six L's Packing Co., Inc.," one of the nation's largest tomato producers and a contractor to Taco Bell (according to the industry journal "The Packer"), still pays 40 cents per bucket. That is the same piece rate paid since 1978."

Here is the proposed solution:

"What can Taco Bell do?

"Taco Bell could nearly double the picking piece rate paid to farmworkers by agreeing to pay just one penny more per pound for the tomatoes it buys from Florida growers. We believe that Taco Bell, as part of the "world's largest restaurant system" can easily afford to pay one penny more. But even if they passed the cost on to YOU, the consumer, it would still be less than 1/4 of 1 cent more for your chalupa."

Did you hear that? There is an international boycott to get Taco bell "...to pay just one penny more per pound." Yet, Starbucks, this unchained monster that is killing minorities with a corporate smile, is (in the words of Wweek) "...a few cents shy of the per-pound price."

To everyone who buys starbucks I want you to know something: Unfortunately, I cannot afford to send money to charities that help people in third world countries and most of you can't either and if if you can, you never have. BUT when you buy starbucks coffee...

...YOU are the one who is stealing the money directly from the hands of third world country families who desperately need that money for food, medicine and for basic survival! Starbucks is known as Starcrooks because they steal from the people who are suffering the most.

You think it is just a few cents and it won't make a difference but a few American cents, in third world currency exchange makes a tremendous difference and in your heart, you know it.

Willamette Week Pro-Starbucks Propaganda #2:

Yesterday I wrote a comment titled: "STARCROOKS IS NOT A GOOD EMPLOYER -1000 employees ripped off! [reference 5]

I would like to explain more about how Starbucks is ripping off the rest of America in this manner.

Starbucks paid 18 million dollars to settle a lawsuit. The claim was filed on behalf of over 1,000 current and former managers and assistant managers in California stores who were classified by the company as exempt from overtime. While their jobs had management titles, more than half their actual work time was spent performing non-exempt duties such as ringing sales and maintaining their stores. As a result, they did not qualify as exempt employees and were entitled to overtime pay for hours worked in excess of eight per day or forty per week.

The only reason Starbucks was able to be exposed for ripping people off in this manner, was because California is one of the most progressive states in the country, and made a law which makes it illegal for corporate employers to "promote someone to a salaried manager position simply to unethically weasel out of paying them for the countless overtime that a 60 hour work week, common for Starbucks managers, entails on a regular basis. The sad part is, in other states, there is not such a law so Starbucks carries on with 'corporate business as usual' and rips off some of the most vulnerable people in America. They have created a corporate formula which takes advantage of it and as they expand they will not change this formula. This is well noted in the settlement as they "admitted no wrongdoing."

It is these types of profit first, people last, formulas which cause Starbucks to thrive on the suffering of minorities and others. Here is a quote from the Multinational Monitor:

"Probably the most far-reaching policies are formula business bans, which about half a dozen towns around the country have adopted. These prohibit formula restaurant and retail chains from locating in a community. They don't say that Starbucks can't come in, but they do say that, if Starbucks wants to build, it has to look and operate, both internally and externally, completely differently from any other Starbucks in the country. This sets up a pretty significant hurdle that most major retail corporations are not willing to comply with. Coronado and Arcata, California are examples of cities that have recently adopted these policies." ,[reference 6]

Willamette Week Pro-Starbucks Propaganda #3:

Quote from Wweek: "CHARGE #2: STARBUCKS PAYS ITS FARMERS SLAVE WAGES. VERDICT: NOT (ALL THAT) GUILTY. "

Lies. Wweek goes on to say: "Aside from better prices, another way Starbucks avoids gross Third World exploitation is by doing business directly with growers, cutting out the middlemen who skim off a hefty cut from the farmers' share. Oxfam, the British anti-poverty charity, is even willing to give the company credit for buying 30 percent of its coffee direct from farmers, which leads all major coffee buyers."

I am not saying that Starbucks is involved in "gross Third World exploitation." That is an understatement. I am saying the truth: Starbucks is involved in downright murderous third world exploitation. The Wweek's use of twisted half-truths using the name of a Oxfam, a charity to clean up the Starbucks image is a public disgrace. I have another quote involving Oxfam that I would like to share. Before reading this quote, ask yourself this question: "Which country on earth has the most internationally known crisis of starving people? Many people instantly think of Ethiopia as having the most vulnerable people in the world when it comes to abject starvation. Starbucks is an international predator that is unquestionably promoting the starvation of the world's most vulnerable people in the world. Here is the Oxfam quote:

"Here's the problem:

"There is a crisis destroying the livelihoods of 25 million coffee producers around the world," reports Oxfam. "The price of coffee has fallen by almost 50 percent in the past three years to a 30-year low. Long-term prospects are grim. Developing country farmers, mostly poor smallholders, now sell their coffee beans for much less than they cost to produce -- only 60 percent of production costs in Vietnam's Dak Lak Province, for example. Farmers sell at a heavy loss while branded coffee sells at a hefty profit."

"For many coffee-producing countries, plummeting prices are devastating their national economies. Central American countries have seen revenues fall 44 percent in a year, from 1999/2000 to 2000/2001. In Ethiopia, coffee export revenues declined 42 percent. In Uganda, where a quarter of the population depends on coffee for their livelihood, coffee earnings dropped 30 percent.
"For individual farmers around the world, declining prices have pushed them to the edge of survival, or destroyed their means of livelihood altogether. Tens of thousands are losing their land in Central America alone, and thousands of plantation workers have been thrown out of work.

"The low prices are due to a global surplus of coffee beans. The surplus reflects a variety of forces, including the collapse of domestic and international marketing controls by producer countries -- in part a consequence of IMF and World Bank policies, the entrance of Vietnam into the global coffee market and a surge in Brazilian production, and stagnant demand in rich countries.

"The market imbalance has further shifted power to the giant coffee roasters. Coffee farmers get 1 percent or less of the price of coffee at Starbucks, and about 6 percent of the cost of a supermarket pack of coffee, according to Oxfam.

"Meanwhile, the coffee roasters are operating with extremely high profit margins."

"These companies do not have complete control of the market, but they have the power to move to a global solution. They have not.

"There will be no solution without management of price and supply.

"Activists are demanding the companies buy a modest 5 percent of their beans from Fair Trade-certified growers. Fair Trade coffee ensures farmers get a sustainable price."[reference 7]

That quote was from an article subtitled "Mugging The World" and that is exactly what Starbucks is doing. They are mugging the world, they are mugging the most vulnerable people and they are mugging Portland.

And everytime that I see WWeek write a pro-corporation article which ignores the suffering of the poor or negligently attempts to downplay the suffering that such monstrous corporations cause people, it makes me realize why more people must work to rid ourselves of these corporations.

In closing, I would like to thank all those people who are bravely taking action and also those who are speaking out against such oppression. Former Starbucks employee Colleen McDonald was very brave and awesome to write her indymedia article titled "Thoroughly Starbucked" Response'. "[reference 7] Corporations such as Coca-Cola have demonstrated that they are willing to kill people (even inside their own bottling factories) who speak out against them or try to start a union. "[reference 8]

We need more former and current employees to speak out against Starbucks, even if done anonymously. Your voice does make a difference. I opened up the Portland Tribune today and saw that yet another Starbucks kiosk is opening up inside a Safeway tomorrow. The longer we wait to speak out against Starbucks and other corporations, the stronger they become.

I would also like to thank my friends at Dignity Village and each and every person who was part of the excellent play I saw titled "The Filmore Hotel." The Wweek article came out on Wednesday and since the moment I read it I was emotionally, mentally and physically sickened by it and I wrestled with myself trying to convince myself not to say anything about it because I would be too emotional. Three days later, I saw the play, and at one point in the story, an actor, who would become homeless because the landlord kicked him and his friends out into the streets to make a luxury hotel, yelled at his friends and told them that they have to speak up about injustice. That made me realize that I should at least write this article. Even a theatre production is a form of independent expression and I hope more people will get involved in the struggle. Wweek has a mission statement of being "independent" but is woefully obvious that someone in their administrative chain of command is more than willing to sell us out for favor in the eyes of even their most monstrous multinational corporate sponsors.

In truth, I must tell you that one of my strongest reasons for writing this article because I honestly and strongly believe that the Wweek article was simply Wweek 'testing the waters' to see if their new form of pro-corporation journalism/advertising would pass by the public without tremendous public criticism. I honestly am concerned that one day I might wake up to discover that Wweek has transformed my beautiful Portland day into a living nightmare by publishing an article titled:

Why Can't Walmart Get Any respect? (And Why It Should)."

That may sound like a joke but as Starbucks spreads its profit-before-people virus presence all over the world, all third world country farmers, and all the Starbucks employees (who are illegally prevented by Starbucks from starting a union) and all of the world's most vulnerable people can't laugh anymore. That is because like me, they are too busy crying inside about this international corporate-plaque known as Starbucks which is not only being ignored by the mainstream media, but also being promoted.

[reference 1]