MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ:  Welcome back to The Real News Network. I’m Maximillian Alvarez. In the post-World War heyday of American manufacturing and industrial unionism, when the middle class was exploding, about one in every three workers in this country was part of a union. But today, as working people face a punishing cost of living crisis, an evaporating middle class, and Gilded Age levels of inequality, jobs replaced by gig work or AI, only one in 10 workers in the US has a union job.

But after decades of decline, the organized labor movement has seen a resurgence in rank and file militancy over the last decade. From the Red for Ed teacher strikes of 2018 and 2019 to the United Auto Workers standup strike of 2023, from the Hollywood writers and actors strikes in 2023 to the giant meatpacking worker strike in Colorado that just happened this month, unionization efforts from Amazon workers in New York to exotic dancers in California.

Something is definitely happening in the American workforce, and it’s frankly unlike anything that we’ve seen in my lifetime at least. And in the story of this recent revival of labor in America, the movement led by predominantly young baristas to unionize Starbucks has played a pivotal role.

Beginning back in 2021 with the unionization of the first Starbucks store in the United States in Buffalo, New York, the Starbucks Workers United campaign has since exploded and grown to over 600 stores across the US voting to unionize. And yet, after all that, after all the union busting and firings and store closures that you’ve seen us reporting on year after year, these workers are still fighting for their first contract with the coffee giant.

So the struggle, as they say, continues. And in the new documentary Baristas vs Billionaires, Director Mark Mori takes you on a journey through the last five years of the epic ongoing struggle to unionize Starbucks, told by some of the workers and organizers at the center of that struggle.

Here’s a clip from the trailer. Check it out.

[CLIP BEGINS]

HOWARD SCHULTZ:  Yes, I have billions of dollars.

CROWD CHANTS:  Shut it down!

HOWARD SCHULTZ:  I earned it. No one gave it to me.

CROWD CHANTS:  Shut it down!

MICHELLE EISEN:  We are tired of listening to billionaire CEOs take sole credit for the billions of dollars of profit made off our labor.

STARBUCKS WORKER 1:  I’m getting health care through Starbucks. I can’t afford my medical bills.

STARBUCKS WORKER 2:  I qualify for food stamps because I was getting my hours cut so much.

STARBUCKS WORKER 3:  A lot of people are just sick of it.

STARBUCKS WORKER 4:  Conditions were so bad that a union made a lot of sense.

GARY BONADONNA:  Howard Schultz sends a swarm of out-of-state managers into Buffalo, New York.

STARBUCKS WORKER 5:  They flew in from around the country to bust the union.

STARBUCKS WORKER 6:  He is angry at us. We never wanted to wage war. We’ve been met with vitriol and retaliation.

MARY-LYN BUCKLEY:  Two Starbucks employees were arrested.

STARBUCKS WORKER 1:  They could not find a reason to fire me. They had to make something up.

STARBUCKS WORKER 7:  We’re one year in and we don’t have a contract!

STARBUCKS WORKER 8:  The only reason why they had the chance to fire me is because we don’t have the contract that says just cause.

STARBUCKS WORKER 9:  They fired seven of us in one day, all within like 15 minutes apart.

HOWARD SCHULTZ:  We’re not abusing our people.

RICHARD BENSINGER:  When you pulled the curtain back, you saw the true nature of Howard Schultz.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS:  Starbucks has waged the most aggressive and illegal union busting campaign in the modern history of our country.

[CLIP ENDS]

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ:  That’s from the new documentary Baristas vs Billionaires. And I’m really grateful to be joined on The Real News today by director of the film and Academy Award nominee Mark Mori and by legendary actor and Academy Award nominee Alec Baldwin, who is a producer on the film.

So gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. And Mark, I want to toss the first question to you. This is such an important story, but it’s also such a big story. Like I said, I’ve been covering it since Buffalo, talking to so many workers at stores all over the country, and it frankly never feels like enough. And we’ve had over 600 stores unionized since then.

So talk about first why you needed to tell this story in a full-length documentary, and then talk about how you approached the task of how to tell that massive story.

MARK MORI:  Well, for one thing, before I became a filmmaker, I was a steelworker, worked in a steel mill for five years, member of the steelworkers union. So that kind of experience, I think really… And based on my knowledge of labor history, I saw what started in 2020, 2021 at Amazon and Trader Joe’s and Starbucks and REI and all these places, a union movement among young people was building up. And to me, I could see that that was going to build up for years, somewhat like happened in the 1930s. And so I viewed this as an important story and a story that had legs.

And really the story of the film is it’s grown from a single store in Buffalo, New York. Once they crossed that line and voted in the union, then it just spread like wildfire, as you said, to 600 stores. So the key thing about it is these are young people in their 20s who are taking this movement up and leading it themselves. And that, I think, is really the significance of it.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ:  Now, Alec, you’re a Renaissance man. You’re acting in movies that we’ve all seen…

ALEC BALDWIN:  You’re very kind.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ:  You’re in TV shows we’ve all seen. You’re an activist, but you’re also a union member. I wanted to ask if you could talk about what it’s meant for you over the course of your career to be in a union and why it’s important to you to be a producer on this film about the Starbucks Union Drive.

ALEC BALDWIN:  Well, for me, I’ve known Mark Mori for quite a while. We produced and I hosted a show called Reel Footage — With R-E-E-L — That was an independent Bravo IFC production that we did where we interviewed filmmakers who might not get a really vivid distribution for their films. We did David O. Russell. We did a bunch of really, really great people. 

And Mark and I did that. And then we’ve been connected on a couple different projects. We did some work with Turner Classic Movies and so forth. And I’ve just known Mark for quite a while, for almost 40 years now. And I was aware of his career with Building Bombs and all of his successful films, Bettie Page [Reveals All]. 

But then he came to me and asked me if I wanted to take a look at this and what thoughts I had about the film and where Gianna Reeves was on my podcast. When she’s on camera, you can’t take her eyes off of her, and her passion and her commitment and the commitment of everybody else up there in Buffalo. Howard Schultz was on my podcast as well, which was interesting. I’m thinking of splicing together Howard and Gianna into one show [Alvarez laughs], and that could work pretty well. 

But anyway, these companies that are making this enormous amount of money and overworking these people, you come in there, and it’s that great line from North Dallas Forty, that old football movie that Nick Nolte was in. And they’re talking to the management of the Cowboys — It might be a different name in the movie — And he says, “When we say it’s a game, you say it’s a business. When we say it’s a business, you say it’s a game.” They alternate whether you’re coming to Starbucks to work in its business or you’re coming and it’s like home and you’re part of a family and you shouldn’t be nickel and diming them about your hours and your schedule and so forth.

And I support unions who are trying to make the workplace safer and the schedules more humane. Right now, the United States is filled with people who need to work second and third jobs just to pay their bills. And that’s tragic. But at the same time, when they do step up and meet those responsibilities, why make it impossible for them? Why make them suffer for doing so? You want them to stay home and not work and just go on government support or something? So here are people who are trying to fulfill their obligations or their commitments to their families and paying their bills — And their taxes, by the way — And they need help. They need help. And the market is [inaudible] to provide that hope.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ:  I mentioned in the introduction the major strikes that shook Hollywood in 2023, when both the Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild were on strike at the same time. Now, I interviewed a bunch of workers during that strike, and obviously one of the peculiarities that they really all stress to people outside of the industry is that the vast majority of SAG-AFTRA members are not the high-earning superstars like Alec Baldwin or Meryl Streep. They’re the workaday actors, the radio presenters, et cetera, who are all just trying to make a living in an industry where that is becoming increasingly impossible. But we don’t see or think about that. We just think about the big movie stars.

And then, of course, there’s the other issue of Hollywood unions having much more cultural visibility than, say, striking hospital workers at Kaiser Permanente or striking meatpacking workers at JBS in Colorado.

So as two people on the inside who have made lifelong careers in this industry, I wanted to get your thoughts on how you navigate those dynamics. How can bigger name members of unions like SAG-AFTRA or professional athlete unions leverage their position to help all workers in their unions? And how can a more visible union like SAG-AFTRA help working class struggles like the union drive at Starbucks?

ALEC BALDWIN:  People need to remember that when Denzel Washington stars in a film or when Timothée Chalamet or Jessica Chastain, all the leading lights of the business, they don’t walk into the offices at Warner Brothers or a studio, or they don’t have their agents walk in and hold a gun to anybody’s head and say, add a couple more zeros to that contract. It’s a competitive bidding process, and people come to them and make offers to them. And agents, obviously, and managers game that system to get their price up as high as possible, and they’re paid millions of dollars voluntarily by these companies. No one makes them do that in TV and film and so forth. Now, in independent films where the fees are a lot more modest, it’s a different story.

But the purpose of the union, as far as I’m concerned — This is not a fact, this is a feeling that I have — The purpose of the union should overwhelmingly be to protect the interests of the workaday actors and the people who are, as you said, I think only like… I don’t know the numbers, but I’m always hearing these numbers where it’s like only 4% do this for a living and can pay their bills and earn a living as actors, which I don’t know if that number’s accurate, but the overwhelming majority of people, it is a struggle. 

And you see the majors, the studios, the networks, the streamers, their fees can never go down. Their paychecks can never go down. Pay an exec $30 million, $40 million, $50 million for the work that they do — Per year, by the way. Some people are earning in the hundreds of millions of dollars for the sales of companies. 

And my biggest concern is that when they don’t raise revenue, when they don’t increase subscribers, let’s say using a streamer as an example, when they don’t do that, then they’ve got to cut costs. They fire people, they want to renegotiate and cut fees and cut costs. So that’s the problem is that when they don’t increase their revenue, they’re going to cut costs to maintain a profitability that’s… I think it smells, it’s bad. A guy that’s an exec at a company making $30 million. 

Now, if they have success, let’s have success-based bonuses and so forth. I mean, people should be rewarded. This is the United States. It’s not Russia. People should be rewarded for their successful efforts.

But back to Mark Mori for a minute. Mark is someone who has a keen ear for that. Maybe our next movie we could do together, Mark, is a documentary about SAG, about SAG, the history of SAG and AFTRA and how they came together, and the screen extras guild and everything. 

Because SAG is a very interesting thing because they fight really hard. But at the same time, these strikes ruin this business. I’ll never forget — And this is the last thing I’ll say — [1988], and the writers’ strike came, and I can’t tell you the impact it had on the business. As someone pointed out to me, it not only shuttered production, but in that town, which was a one-horse town more so than now, everything closed. Limo drivers, florist shops, clothing stores, dry cleaners, restaurants, bars, you name it. I mean, nobody had any money, nobody had any jobs to buy anything. So it crippled the Los Angeles economy for quite a while. 

And I think everybody knows now what the difficult place the union is in and SAG is in is that they want to be able to hold over the producers the potential threat of a strike, but everybody knows that a strike potentially costs more than it’s worth. Who knows? Strikes are bad. Strikes are a problem. Everybody loses in a strike, but we have to be able to maintain that.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ:  No, and Mark, I wanted to bring you in here on that question too. Because I guess I wanted to ask you both, is there a unique strength that, say, a union like SAG-AFTRA has where it can leverage the star power of some of its members for the benefit of all of its members? And is there a position that more culturally visible unions like SAG and the Writers Guild can play in lifting up labor struggles like the Starbucks workers?

MARK MORI:  Well, one thing I can say about that, Baristas versus Billionaires is a SAG-AFTRA film. Susan Sarandon, Academy Award winner, is our narrator. And so we did a contract with SAG for her services, and having people like Alec and Susan bring attention to the Starbucks worker, the plight of the baristas and their now five-year battle to win a union. I mean, this is an untold story. People —

ALEC BALDWIN:  Say, by the way, so Max, you didn’t honestly think you were going to catch Mark Mori making a nonunion film about Starbucks unionization [Mori laughs], did you?

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ:  Oh, God, no…

ALEC BALDWIN:  He’s a lot more clever than that, Max [laughs]. He’s a clever guy.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ:  So I know you guys got to go, and I just wanted to throw this question to both of you before you leave. Building on this documentary, it feels like we’re on the cusp of a renaissance in cinema and the arts, particularly when it comes to more stories that are infused with labor politics and working class struggle. Do you guys think that that’s possible in today’s Hollywood? And what do you think it could look like?

ALEC BALDWIN:  Is what possible? Is what possible?

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ:  Having a more working-class-focused art scene and movies that focus on worker struggles like this incredible documentary. Do you think there’s a possibility for more of that and for Hollywood playing an even bigger role in building class consciousness in today’s culture?

ALEC BALDWIN:  Well, Hollywood, it’s not their responsibility to build class consciousness. It’s their responsibility, once you understand, it’s their responsibility to make money. These are for-profit corporations. And if selling to the American people a consciousness-raising project or a slate of projects that speak to those conditions, union or otherwise, then they’re going to do that. But the Hollywood studios are in the potato chip business. They’re not in the gourmet food business. It’s snack food. So the blinding majority of these films are going to be for entertainment purposes.

But here’s the point that I want to make — And that is that I’m not predicting this, but I wouldn’t rule it out. I wouldn’t rule it out — Starbucks begins to struggle if they have to sign union contracts. But Starbucks became Starbucks because they were not unionized and they could exploit that. They could exploit labor, not where they’re brutalizing them, but they have exploited labor in some places.

These individual locations, obviously, who knows if it was at the direction of corporate, but you’re going to watch and see what’s going to happen to Starbucks. Is Starbucks going to start to slowly…? I mean, we all know nothing lasts forever. Amazon could be gone. All these things could end if someone outthinks them. And if Starbucks succeeded and thrived to become this monolith in this food service thing and beverage service thing, then is that going to last? Is that going to last? I mean, what happens if states start to tell them — Not every Starbucks, that’s not going to happen — But state by state, if there becomes a volume of them that demand that these people, that their locations, are they going to pull out of those states? Are they going to be able to sustain in those states? They’re going to raise prices in those states and they won’t be competitive.

If Starbucks unionizes on any significant percentage, then what’s the impact going to be on Starbucks itself? I contend that they’re not going to go out of business, but I do believe that Starbucks has become Starbucks because of this exploitation.

MARK MORI:  Well, I think you think about films like, say, Norma Rae. I mean, Hollywood is capable of doing these sorts of stories, but it’s the more conscious directors and producers that are interested in those kind of things that makes that happen. That is not initiated at the studio level, I guarantee you that. And if somebody with power can make that kind of thing happen. And say for instance, if Baristas vs Billionaires becomes very successful, then that would be the kind of thing that would cause some people in Hollywood to take a look at that. So if you want more labor stories, support the ones that are out there like Barista vs Billionaires.

MAXIMILLIAN ALVAREZ:  And that’s a great lead into my final question. So, what can folks watching do to support this film? Where can they go see it and learn more about it?

MARK MORI:  Well, they can go to our website, baristasvsbillionaires.com. We’re currently doing some film festivals, actually tonight, Tuesday, April 28, they’re screening at the Atlanta Film Festival, which is where I started my career almost 40 years ago. And it’s going to be in Jacksonville, Florida, June 20, and it’s going to be — Oh, on Wednesday the 29th, it’s in Santa Cruz, California, at the Reel Work Labor Film Festival.

But anybody can go to the website and get in touch with us and set up a community screening, a church group, a local group, union local. Right now the film is available. They can either show it to their members or a group they get together, or they could even sell tickets and raise money. And in fact, the film has a one-week run at the Terra Theater in Atlanta starting May 8. The opening night there’s a benefit for Starbucks Workers United, so we’re going to be looking to do more of that sort of thing.