"New media is playing a central role in organizing workers in the service sector," noted Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at UC Berkeley.
But employers also have well-developed Web presences and often aggressively refute what management views as misleading statements posted online. "I don't see the use of the Internet and social media as giving the unions a tremendous upper hand, though to some extent it does allow them to make initial contact with a wide variety of people," said Nelson N. Lichtenstein, a labor historian at UC Santa Barbara. "The companies also have the same abilities."
Organizers say the Stop Starbucks campaign has already resounded through social networks on the Internet. The video was prominently displayed on the popular BoingBoing blog, along with others.
"What happens with these things is that people watch it, send the link to friends, and you can see it build," said Robert Greenwald, head of left-leaning Brave New Films, which has produced previous videos attacking Fox News, Sen. John McCain and corporate targets. "Its a tool that doesn't cost billions of dollars."
The campaign against Starbucks was timed to coincide with the titanic congressional battle anticipated for organized labor's major legislative goal: the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for U.S. workers to choose union representation.
Like most big businesses, Starbucks is opposed to the act. The coffee giant, which generates $10 billion a year in revenue, has joined forces with retailers Whole Foods and Costco in forming the so-called Committee for a Level Playing Field, which is backing what it calls a compromise plan.
"We stepped out to take an alternative position, and that makes us a target," said Koster, the Starbucks vice president. "The video, for us, is a one-sided attempt at a lobbying campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act."
The video opens with a radiant Schultz, the Starbucks CEO, proclaiming to a CBS interviewer: "We're not in the business of filling bellies. We're in the business of filling souls."
Former and current Starbucks employees then speak on the video about the company's alleged hostility to unions. The Industrial Workers of the World -- whose members were known as the Wobblies during its early-20th century heyday -- has been organizing Starbucks baristas in New York, Minnesota, Illinois and elsewhere.
