Starbucks workers nationwide went on strike Nov. 13, with nine stores in Oregon joining the action. Credit: Photo by Aurora Biggers
As Starbucks baristas across the nation are striking for a union contract, social media platforms are rife with discourse debating whether jobs that pay below a living wage should pay more, citing a longstanding myth that such labor is “unskilled.”
"Last month in Oregon labor" is a monthly installment by Aurora Biggers covering all things Oregon labor.
One thing the COVID-19 pandemic taught us is that what employers and the public deem as “unskilled” labor is not a hard and fast classification.
Frontline workers from health care professionals to grocery baggers were deemed “essential” at the start of the pandemic. Food service, maintenance, agriculture — really any industry that remained open for public facing business had their employees risking their health to keep our communities functioning.
Just a few years later, many of these “essential” workers are now back to being “unskilled.” Even workers with nursing degrees are reclassified as non-professional by the federal government.
So what makes a job “unskilled?” Who determines those classifications and where did the designation come from?
The argument often goes like this: People who work low-wage jobs don’t have specialized skills, don’t work as hard as “skilled” workers, and don’t do particularly difficult jobs, therefore why should they be paid more?
This is a paternalizing mentality, one that tends to come with the notion that low-wage jobs are for children. It’s also penalizing: that adults working these jobs have made mistakes they are paying for by earning poverty wages.
I want to be clear. The belief that any worker, regardless of age, education, class, gender, race, orientation, country of birth — the list goes on — doesn’t deserve a living wage, is inhumane. There is no such thing as “unskilled” labor. It’s a classification created by and for those in power to use against and control working class people. The phrase is oxymoronic within itself. How can any labor, an act that takes effort, require no skills?
In 1820, the U.S. Census Bureau began categorizing jobs as skilled and unskilled depending on whether the occupation required special training, judgment or special manual abilities. The designation predated broad emancipation and the northern United States was seeing an influx of Black workers into the labor market. The majority of so-called unskilled jobs were then and in many cases still today performed by people of color.
While the distinctions by the Bureau alone are offensive, they have also given way for employers to abuse, divide and poison the working class. From Starbucks to Kroger, employers use the myth of unskilled labor to keep wages low and sow competition between “skilled” and “unskilled” workers.
As the National Fund for Workplace Solutions puts it, “‘Low-skill worker’ erases the skills that all workers bring to their jobs,” the organization said. “Furthermore, labeling people ‘low-skill’ puts the burden on the individual to gain ‘better’ skills, rather than on employers or industries to invest in their frontline workforce, improve the quality of their jobs, and provide supports that allow workers to succeed and advance.”
It’s a subject that gives rise to intense debate, both within the labor movement and beyond.
In recent social media posts in support of local striking Starbucks workers, the Oregon AFL-CIO received hosts of comments calling baristas’ work “unskilled,” demeaning their work down to simply “pouring coffee” and saying, “minimum wage skills pay minimum wage bills.” In other posts addressing the unskilled labor myth, commenters said calling low-wage work “skilled” was insulting to trades workers. Another commenter agreed that service and agriculture workers use skills in their jobs but said that still doesn’t make them “skilled” in the same way a trades worker is.
This seems to be the crux of the working class divide on the skilled labor debate. The reality is that jobs that require a college degree, jobs that require apprenticeship qualifications and jobs that don’t require formal pre-job training all require skills. The lines between the two classifications are often arbitrary and murky.
Take meatpackers, farmworkers, caregivers and carpenters, for instance. Three of these four jobs are often considered unskilled. Yet, all of them use manual dexterity, judgment and special knowledge to complete their jobs. The first three jobs were, however, historically completed by children, enslaved people, immigrants and women. To this day, these jobs are considered more domestic and still are often completed by immigrants, women and people of color.
Should a worker with a college degree or a journeyworker feel offended at a dishwasher being considered skilled? Should they feel wronged that other workers are also making a living wage?
On the contrary, increased wages through unionizing help entire industries and communities, according to a 2023 report by Laura Feiveson, then deputy assistant secretary for microeconomics at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
“Competition means workers at nonunionized firms see increased wages too,” Feiveson said. “Heightened workplace safety norms can pull up whole industries. Union members improve their communities through heightened civic engagement; they are more likely to vote, donate to charity, and participate in a neighborhood project. And the higher pay and job security of both union and nonunion middle-class workers can further spill over to their families and communities through more stable housing, more investment in education and other channels.”
In effect, as wages increase for low-wage workers, wage standards increase across entire regions as well.
To add another layer to the gross inequality prescribed by the skilled and unskilled job classifications, the U.S. legal immigration system offers few visas for “low-skilled” workers, forcing many immigrants into H2-A (agricultural) and H2-B (non-agricultural) visa programs. Between 2000 and 2021, employers using H2-B visas stole $1.8 billion in wages.
The classifications can also give the U.S. Department of Labor precedent to deny disability benefits to workers. For example, a worker in a so-called unskilled job could be denied benefits if they previously worked a job with semi-skilled or skilled work because the Department of Labor views that work as transferable, not factoring in the likelihood of such a job being obtained.
When a nationally significant campaign like Starbucks takes the stage in online discourse, we see a history playing out that spans over two centuries, steeped in racism and sexism, and thrust on us from an early age to make us more productive, cooperative workers, divided against each other — all to line the pockets of the ultra-wealthy.
It’s important to remember this: Unskilled labor is a myth used to justify poverty wages. We’re in a time where we’re seeing the world’s first potential trillionaire, a Starbucks CEO making 6,666 times his average workers’ annual wages in just four months and the greatest income inequality since the Gilded Age. Meanwhile, the federal government is declaring a Golden Age for working Americans while slashing jobs, illegally cancelling union contracts, removing Occupational Safety and Health Administration protections, creating the greatest job decline since the pandemic and kidnapping immigrants en masse.
Creating a just and equitable economy for us all will require class solidarity.
Government shutdown impacts
The government began to reopen in mid-November after President Trump signed a bill to fund the government. Here’s a breakdown of how the bill affects working class people and what to expect in the coming months.
The shutdown unfortunately ended without the Affordable Care Act subsidy health care extensions that Democrats were fighting for, meaning health insurance costs will double for many working class Americans. Further, the bill that reopened the government does not include any promise to revisit health care subsidies.
The vote in the Senate that set the shutdown’s end into motion was prompted by eight Democratic Senators, none from Oregon, joining forces with the Senate Republicans to reopen the government. Their joint cooperation is a betrayal of working people, following the Trump administration’s use of jobs, food and health care as bargaining chips to pass a budget that leaves behind the priorities of working class people.
The bills, passed by Congress in early November and signed by Trump, only fund the government until Jan. 30.
The deal funds food and agriculture services, the Department of Veterans Affairs, military construction and Congress through September 2026, while the remaining government services are maintained through January.
It also aims to rectify harm done to federal workers by reversing mass layoffs during the shutdown and blocking new mass layoffs until the end of January.
Without further progress after the new year, we could see another government shutdown, as the deal passed this month only addresses three of a dozen bills needed to keep funds flowing to federal programs and funds the remainder of the government through Jan. 30.
House and Senate leaders have not agreed on an overall total for the rest of the fiscal year’s spending and still need to address major areas like health, education, labor, transportation and housing.
In total, the shutdown did egregious harm to working class people and was resolved with very few wins and no concrete promises for our future. The shutdown and the ultimate deal underscore a greater reliance on community organizing and mutual aid, with Oregonians pulling together across the state to mitigate food assistance funding lapses.
New campaigns and elections
The historic government shutdown, spanning 43 days between October and mid-November, was like a sledgehammer stopping Oregon’s campaign filings and elections. While both Washington and Alaska, two states in Oregon’s National Labor Relations Board region had an influx of filings upon the government reopening, Oregon had none for the month of November. Montana, which consistently trails the other three states in the region in filings, had one filing this month.
Conversely, for elections, Oregon and Alaska were the standout states, each holding one union election this month, while Montana and Washington have none recorded.
It’s possible the shutdown had a chilling effect on organizing, causing campaigns that were set to file or waiting on elections to be more susceptible to union busting during a prolonged period without NLRB services.
For Oregon’s part, the state’s lone election this month ended in a loss. After filing in April, City View Charter School workers from teachers to lunch program employees in Hillsboro voted down efforts by a slim margin to join the Oregon Education Association, with 18 voting for the union and 19 against.
Labor actions
On Nov. 13, Starbucks workers nationwide went on strike, hitting the company’s most profitable day of the year, “Red Cup Day,” when the company gives away a free, limited-edition reusable cup to customers who order a holiday beverage. Baristas harnessed the day’s profitability and hit the picket lines, calling for an end to unfair labor practices and a fair contract with living wages and decent benefits.
In Oregon, baristas went on strike at locations in Portland, Gresham, Beaverton, Damascus and Eugene. A key Salem location joined the strike Nov. 28.
The union, Starbucks Workers United — affiliated with Service Employees International Union — says a fair contract would cost less than a day of sales and points at executive excess as evidence that the company can afford to pay living wages.
As of Dec. 2, the workers remained on strike.
Several thousand workers at the Oregon Health & Science University authorized a strike after 10 months of bargaining, according to a Nov. 18 announcement from their union, the Oregon American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, Local 328.
“Our members are OHSU. We ensure our patients are fed and cared for, operating rooms are clean and safe, we run all administrative functions including patient accounting and payroll, and administer research grants and programs. We are absolutely vital to every day to day operation of the University, and to our community’s safety,” Jennie Olson, president of AFSCME Local 328, said in a press release.
The workers and university are in a 30-day cooling-off period, during which the two must consider the final offers at the bargaining table.
Should the union decide to wait longer and launch a strike in January, a new bill will be in effect in Oregon that allows striking workers to access unemployment benefits after the first two weeks.
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