Mamdani, Sanders Join Striking Starbucks Workers

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Transcript

00:00We don't get it! Shut it down! We don't get it! Shut it down! We don't get it! Shut it down!

00:16Like so many working people across this city, these are not demands of greed.

00:23These are demands for decency.

00:26These are workers who are simply being asked to be treated with the respect that they deserve.

00:33They're being asked that their labor be repaid in a manner that allows them to build a dignified life.

00:40And I join them because I want to do everything that I can to show my solidarity,

00:46but also because I know that far too often the voices of everyday working people

00:51are not amplified with the volume that management so easily receives.

00:55So I want to share a few numbers with you here this afternoon.

01:00Numbers that I hope will place this struggle into some sense of perspective.

01:0436.2 billion.

01:07That is the amount of money that Starbucks made in revenue just last year.

01:1295.8 million.

01:17That's the compensation package that Starbucks CEO Brian Nickel earned for four months of work last year.

01:266,666.

01:30That is how much times larger Nickel's pay was than the average Starbucks barista's salary.

01:36400.

01:38400.

01:39That is how many labor law violations the NLRB has found that Starbucks has committed.

01:45120.

01:47That's the amount of stores that are on strike.

01:50And 85.

01:51The number of cities that they are taking place in.

01:54Now what these numbers show us are a two pronged picture.

02:00On one side corporate greed and self enrichment at the cost of its own workers.

02:06And on the other remarkable solidarity by those workers who have been exploited and mistreated time and time again.

02:12Solidarity as much as we speak of it we have to remember is not an abstract concept.

02:18It is measured in picket lines stood on in the rain and in the sleet.

02:23It is measured in rent payments that workers do not know if they will be able to meet.

02:27Childcare bills they do not know whether they will be able to afford.

02:32And it is measured in strangers who have never met one another linking arms to fight for a shared goal and a fairer future.