Cornell faculty members are invited to sign the below letter by submitting this form.

We, the undersigned faculty members of Cornell University, stand in solidarity with Ithaca workers in the Starbucks union, who have been targeted by the company for exercising their rights to organize and bargain collectively. Just over a year ago, workers won union elections at all three Ithaca Starbucks locations, making Ithaca the first and only city in the US where all Starbucks workers are union members. Since then, Starbucks has been prosecuted by the federal government for repeated and flagrant anti-union activity, including the firing of multiple union leaders and the infamous closure of the Collegetown cafe (for which the National Labor Relations Board prosecutor is seeking an enforceable order to reopen the store). On May 26th, Starbucks further escalated their union-busting campaign by permanently closing all three Ithaca stores. Due to Starbucks’ retaliatory anti-union actions in Ithaca, including the store closings, many employees – including 20 Cornell students – have lost their jobs over the past year.

We support Cornell student advocates who are calling on university administration to end Cornell’s “proudly serving” contract with Starbucks, which is highly lucrative for the company and signals Cornell’s complicity in Starbucks’ labor violations. Faculty and student support for the student advocates is building, including the Cornell AAUP Chapter “Statement in Support of Student Protests against Starbucks on Cornell Campus” and the Cornell Student Assembly resolution, “Starbucks Off Our Campus.”

Especially given the presence of the ILR School on campus, Cornell has a moral duty to honor the basic rights of working people in Ithaca and beyond. Cornell also has a history of responding to student demands to end relations with firms involved in anti-union activity, such as its refusal to work with Russell Athletic in 2009 and the ending of its licensing relationship with Nike in 2017. In response to student organizing, President Pollack on that occasion informed Nike that its relationship was ending until the company adopted a labor code of conduct vetted by the university and other institutions. It is time for Cornell to do so again.

We call on Cornell and Cornell Dining to immediately terminate all relations with Starbucks, most notably by withdrawing from the Proudly Serving Starbucks Program and removing Starbucks products from Cornell Dining establishments. Cornell should work with the student advocates to select a new coffee vendor that uses ethical labor practices. The university should make clear to Starbucks and the wider public that it will not accept union busting or retaliation against workers exercising their rights.

Signed,

1. Risa Lieberwitz, Professor of Labor and Employment Law
2. E. Wayles Browne, Professor Emeritus 
3. Matthew Evangelista, President White Professor of History and Political Science 
4. Gina Oswald, Senior Extension Associate
5. Allison Chatrchyan, Senior Research Associate
6. Russell Rickford, Associate Professor
7. James Gross, Professor Emeritus
8. Derek Chang, Associate Professor
9. Raymond Craib, Marie Underhill Noll Professor of History
10. Helena Maria Viramontes, Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences in English
11. Lenora Warren, Assistant Professor
12. Leslie Brack, Lecturer
13. Derrick R. Spires, Associate Professor
14. Shannon Gleeson, Edmund Ezra Day Professor
15. Jamila Michener, Associate Professor
16. Joseph Margulies, Professor of the Practice of Government
17. Claudia Verhoeven, Associate Professor
18. Begum Adalet, Assistant Professor
19. Eric Cheyfitz, Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters
20. Suman Seth, Professor
21. Jonathan Boyarin, Professor
22. Eli Friedman, Associate Professor
23. Edward Baptist, Professor
24. Tristan Ivory, Assistant Professor
25. Estelle McKee, Clinical Professor
26. Angela Cornell, Clinical Professor of Law
    
27. Amiel Bize, Assistant Professor 
    
28. TJ Hinrichs, Associate Professor
    
29. Carlton Williams, Assistant Clinical Professor
30. Cynthia Bowman, Dorothea S. Clarke Professor of Law
    
31. Duanyi Yang, Assistant Professor
    
32. Lowell Turner, Professor Emeritus
    
33. Rehana Huq, Lecturer
    
34. Shimon Edelman, Professor of Psychology
35. Iris Packman, Senior Research & Policy Development Associate
36. Sophie Oldfield, Professor
    
37. Michael Gold, Associate Professor of Labor Relations, Law and History
38. Beth Lyon, Clinical Professor of Law
39. Michelle Chen, Postdoctoral Fellow
40. Sandra Babcock, Clinical Professor of Law
41. David Unger, Senior Extension Associate
42. Ian Greer, Research Professor
43. Jeff Grabelsky, Special Projects Director / The Worker Institute at Cornell ILR
44. Margaret Washington, Marie Underhill Noll Professor of American History, Emerita
45. Ileen A. DeVault, Professor of Labor History
    
46. Ben Rissing, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior
47. Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, Associate Professor of History
    
48. Shira Reisman, Extension Associate
    
49. David Bateman, Associate Professor
    
50. Harry Katz, Professor
51. Jonathan Kirshner, Professor Emeritus
52. Adam Seth Litwin, Associate Professor of Industrial & Labor Relations
53. Allison Weiner Heinemann, Senior Lecturer and Director of Writing, ILR School
54. Patricia Campos-Medina, Senior Extension Associate & Executive Director, The Worker Institute
55. Stacey Langwick, Associate Professor
56. Gali Racabi, Assistant Professor
57. Ellice Switzer, Extension Associate
58. Arianna Schindle, Director of Training and Curriculum Design, Worker Institute
59. Ariel Avgar, David M. Cohen Professor of Labor Relations
60. Kate Griffith, Professor
    
61. Mostafa Minawi, Associate Professor
62. Cathy Creighton, Director, ILR Buffalo Co-Lab
63. Jennifer Migliore, Extension Associate
64. Debora Wagner, Senior Extension Associate
65. Saida Hodzic, Associate Professor
66. Megan Garton, Senior Extension Associate
67. Tejasvi Nagaraja, Assistant Professor
68. Anne Marie Brady, Research Director, ILR Worker Institute
69. Jim DelRosso, Librarian, Assistant Director of Catherwood Library
70. Elizabeth Juaniza-Saso, Extension Associate
    
71. Kathleen Mulligan, Senior Extension Associate, The Worker Institute
72. Eric Tagliacozzo, John Stambaugh Professor of History
73. Debbie Krahmer, Diversity and Inclusion Research Librarian at Catherwood Library
74. Kurt A. Jordan, Associate Professor
    
75. Tamara Robinson, Senior Extension Associate, The Worker Institute
76. Brian D. Dunn, Lecturer
77. Julia Chang, Assistant Professor, Romance Studies
78. Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Associate Professor
    
79. Francine Blau, Frances Perkins Professor of Industrial Relations
80. Elaine H. Kim, Senior Extension Associate, The Worker Institute
81. Virginia Doellgast, Professor
    
82. Andrew Wolf, Assistant Professor
    
83. Ben Wrubel, Processing Archivist, Kheel Center
84. Aaron Sachs, Professor
85. Vilma Santiago-Irizarry, Associate Professor
    
86. Vida Maralani, Associate Professor
    
87. Daniel Hirschman, Assistant Professor
    
88. Melissa Shetler, Senior Training and Education Associate, Climate Jobs Institute
89. Neema Kudva, Professor, City and Regional Planning
90. Justine Modica, Klarman Postdoctoral Fellow
    
91. Zach Cunningham, Extension Faculty, ILR School
    
92. KC Wagner, Senior Extension Associate, The Worker Institute
    
93. Ross Brann, Professor, Near Eastern Studies
    
94. James Hardwick, Adjunct Professor of Law
95. J. Robert Lennon, Professor
96. Phoebe Sengers, Professor, Information Science and Science & Technology Studies