'Disgusting': Starbucks to Help Its Workers With Student Debt—Unless They're in a Union

After withholding raises from unionized employees earlier this year, "Starbucks is doubling down on the illegality," said one critic.


Protestors rally against what they argue are union-busting tactics outside a Starbucks

 in Great Neck, New York on August 15, 2022. 

(Photo: Thomas A. Ferrara/Newsday RM via Getty Images)

JESSICA CORBETT

September 12, 2022

Starbucks was yet again blasted as a union-buster on Monday after announcing new financial savings and student loan repayment tools—but only for U.S. workers who haven't unionized.

"Union-busting is disgusting," declared Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, leader of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.

Former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner asserted that there is "no reason to not extend this to union members, too."


As employees of various major corporations have revived the U.S. labor movement this year, workers at more than 200 Starbucks locations have voted to form unions. Starbucks Workers United, labor leaders, progressive lawmakers, and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have accused the company of violating federal law to quash organizing.

The coffee giant said in a statement that with "My Starbucks Savings," workers "will be able to contribute a portion of after-tax pay on a recurring basis directly from their paycheck to a personal savings account," with the company contributing "$25 and $50 credits at key saving milestones up to a total of $250 per incentive eligible partner."

"Starbucks will also launch a Student Loan Management Benefit through Tuition.io to help eligible partners manage and optimize student loan repayments," the company continued. "Through this tool, eligible U.S. partners and their families will have access to new tools, resources, and individual coaching to manage student loan debt, such as repayment options and loan refinancing."

"Tools within the platform will help partners view all their student loan debt in one place and locate the best individual action to take based on their personal repayment scenario and goals," Starbucks added. "This could include taking advantage of income-based repayment options, refinancing, and planning how best to finance education for college-bound students and parents of students."

Starbucks' student debt benefit follows U.S. President Joe Biden last month announcing a long-awaited plan to forgive $10,000 to $20,000 for federal borrowers, along with other relief measures.

The company's new benefits, which take effect next Monday, were teased in May, when Starbucks announced pay increases for its workers—officially called "partners"—who do not belong to unions.

As Bloomberg reported Monday:
Starbucks, which has more than 15,000 U.S. locations, legally can't unilaterally give these benefits to stores that have union activity, according to spokesperson Reggie Borges. Instead, the new benefits can be discussed in collective bargaining, he said.

However, Workers United, the group attempting to organize Starbucks cafes, has argued that the union waived its right to negotiate over extending benefits being provided to other stores, so there's no legal obstacle to doing so...

"Starbucks is blatantly disregarding the law to continue their scorched-earth union-busting campaign," Workers United said in a statement. "Starbucks is not only damaging their brand and their business, but irrevocably damaging their credibility as a company."

The NLRB last month issued a complaint accusing Starbucks of violating U.S. labor law by withholding new benefits from unionized workers.

Reuters noted Monday that Peter Saleh, an analyst at the global financial services firm BTIG, wrote late last month that "we believe the recent wage hikes… are having an adverse effect on the labor unions, with the number of stores filing for a vote declining to the lowest level all year in August."

"Enough is enough," said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) after the NLRB complaint. "Howard Schultz, the billionaire CEO of Starbucks, must end his war against his employees, recognize the union, and negotiate a first contract."


Schultz—who got $940 million richer during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to an August Americans for Tax Fairness analysis—is serving as Starbucks' chief executive for a third time, though he will soon be replaced by Laxman Narasimhan of Reckitt Benckiser Group.

Narasimhan is set to officially join Starbucks next month as "incoming CEO," before stepping into the full role in April. In the interim, "I'm going to be learning from Howard," he said during an internal employee forum in Seattle last week, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Starbucks Workers United highlighted on Twitter that employees unionizing at a store in Albany, New York included Narasimhan's name in a Monday letter.

Noting that Tuesday is the company's annual "Investor Day," the group pressured the incoming CEO to do "the right thing and end Starbucks' war against workers."


Labor organizers are planning to mark Investor Day with a rally and protest outside Starbucks' Seattle headquarters Tuesday morning. One local union said members will be demonstrating to urge Starbucks "to stop union-busting and to give workers a seat at the table."

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Seattle Teachers Secure Tentative Deal to End Strike After 'Enormous Community Support'

"We should all be proud of what we accomplished and what we stood up for: student supports and respect for educators," said the Seattle Education Association.


Teachers in Seattle went on strike last week and reached a tentative deal with the school district on September 12, 2022. (Photo: Seattle Teachers Association/Twitter)

JULIA CONLEY

September 13, 2022

Seattle teachers on Monday night expressed gratitude for "solidarity on the picket lines" and "enormous community support" that they received over the past week while on strike, as the city's teachers union announced it had reached a tentative agreement with the school district.

The Seattle Education Association (SEA) said it had secured a new three-year contract including improved and maintained teacher-student ratios for special education classes, additional mental health staffing across all schools, and annual pay raises.

"We should all be proud of what we accomplished and what we stood up for: student supports and respect for educators," said the SEA. "We made real progress not only in our contract but also in rallying with our community these past several weeks."


The school district said it would announce on Tuesday when classes are now set to begin.

SEA members overwhelmingly voted last week to go on strike, demanding raises particularly for lower-paid educators and school office staff, new limits on workload and class sizes, and more support for students in multilingual and special education.

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Shortly before the deal was reached, Seattle substitute teacher Jeanine Calceta recorded a video thanking community members for their support on picket lines during the strike.

"One of the most remarkable things that I've seen on the picket lines is how much attention we've gained nationwide and how much support we've gained from our family and community members," said Calceta.


Melissa DiLorenzo, the mother of a high school student in the city, told the Associated Press that both she and her son had joined teachers to walk the picket lines and expressed dismay with the earlier contract proposals put forward by Seattle Public Schools.

"Maybe it's because of Covid—parents have a newfound appreciation for what teachers go through," DiLorenzo told the AP. "I would like to see the district listen to educators about what they need in the classroom—I would like to see mental health supports in place, in the form of counselors, social workers, nurses."

The union also garnered support from federal lawmakers including Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).


"This contract negotiation is one more step (albeit an important one!) along our years- and even decades-long journey to achieve the schools we all deserve," said the SEA. "After two incredibly difficult years impacted by Covid and so much more, it is beautiful to know that the community love and support for educators and our public schools is as strong as ever."

"We can and must continue to connect and rally with our communities for the schools our students deserve," the union added, "whether locally or down in Olympia."

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10,000+ Sign Letter Urging Biden to Reverse 'Terrorism' Designation for Cuba

An open letter organized by CodePink calls on U.S. President Joe Biden to abandon the Trump administration's hostile posture toward the Caribbean island.


People walk near a mural depicting a Cuban flag in Havana on April 16, 2021

. (Photo: Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images)


KENNY STANCIL

September 13, 2022


More than 10,000 people and 30 progressive advocacy groups have signed an open letter urging U.S. President Joe Biden to reverse the Trump administration's terrorism designation for Cuba and to reinstate Obama-era policy with the Caribbean island.

"Your policies toward Cuba, which have been more aligned with those of President [Donald] Trump than President [Barack] Obama, are hurting the well-being of the Cuban people and run counter to the will of the majority of U.S. citizens," says the letter, organized by peace campaigners at CodePink. "An important policy change that we urge you to take immediately is to remove Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism."

Just days before Biden's inauguration, Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was roundly criticized for putting Cuba back on the U.S. State Department's list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism."

The Obama White House—in which Biden served as vice president—had removed Cuba from the department's blacklist in 2015, writing that "(i) the Government of Cuba has not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding six-month period; and (ii) the Government of Cuba has provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future."

In a statement attempting to justify his last-minute decision to re-designate Cuba a "state sponsor of terrorism," Pompeo accused Cuba of "repeatedly providing support for acts of international terrorism in granting safe harbor to terrorists" and engaging "in a range of malign behavior across the region."

These were references to Cuba's refusal to extradite members of Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) over alleged involvement in a 2019 bomb attack in Bogotá and to the nation's ongoing support for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who survived a U.S.-backed coup attempt in 2019.

As the new letter explains:

ELN representatives were in Cuba as part of an internationally recognized process of peace negotiations, similar to the one Cuba hosted with the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia], which was supported by the United States, Norway, Colombia and other nations. In addition, the recently elected Colombian president, [Gustavo] Petro, has asked Cuba to serve as the host country again for peace talks with the ELN, erasing any lingering concern or justification that the United States may have of Cuba's role as anything but a guarantor country for peaceful dialogue.

As a result of Pompeo's terrorism classification, which U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has yet to undo after 20 months, Cuba has been forced to endure additional "sanctions and international financial restrictions that limit Cuba's ability to carry out critical financial transactions, including those needed to advance its efforts to combat the pandemic," the letter notes.

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Cuba has been dispatching doctors to various parts of the world to help tackle Covid-19, and it has launched an effort to share its homegrown vaccine technology with other countries to expand global supply. In defiance of decades of harmful U.S.-led sanctions, the biggest export of the small island nation, which has a lower child mortality rate than its more powerful and hostile neighbor to the north, is medical care.

Despite Democratic lawmakers' entreaties and Biden's own campaign pledge to abandon Trump's "failed" approach to Cuba—which included implementing more than 200 punitive policies following Obama-era efforts at normalization—the White House has imposed other sanctions in recent months, intensifying Washington's 60-year embargo on the Caribbean island.

"The economic deprivations to which U.S. sanctions contribute have resulted in the mass migration of Cubans, which is currently a major challenge to U.S. interests in border security, as well as causing a humanitarian crisis for the same Cuban people that your administration claims to support," states the letter.

Biden's recent easing of travel restrictions to Cuba is poised to "help Cuban Americans connect with their families," but that's far from enough to redress the deteriorating economic conditions harming millions of people on the island, the letter continues.

When the Obama administration certified the removal of Cuba from the State Department's blacklist in 2015, it declared that the U.S. would "continue to have differences with the Cuban government, but our concerns over a wide range of Cuba's policies and actions fall outside the criteria that is relevant to whether to rescind Cuba's designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism."

Signatories to the letter contend that "the same situation exists today."

"The United States does have clear differences with the Cuban government—as they do with many governments—but we also have both national and international interests in supporting global pandemic coordination" and in mitigating "Cuba's humanitarian crisis that is causing tens of thousands of Cubans to seek dangerous passage to the United States," says the letter.

At the start of his presidency, Biden said that Cuba's status as a so-called state sponsor of terrorism was "under review," the letter points out.

"Given that removal from the list requires an inquiry into any terrorism-sponsored activity before providing a rescission request to Congress, we request that your administration immediately complete that review and initiate proceedings to remove Cuba from the list," it adds. "Such a move will advance legitimate U.S. security and humanitarian interests and help the future of the Cuban people."

CodePink plans to deliver the letter to various progressive lawmakers this week, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). McGovern was one of a few members of Congress who urged Biden to provide aid to Cuba in the wake of last month's catastrophic oil fire.

The anti-war group also intends to deliver the letter to "opposition figures that continue to advocate for hostility toward Cuba," including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), as well as Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.).

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Analysis Shows 'Quiet Fleecing' of US Workers—Not 'Quiet Quitting'—Is the Real Problem

"Workers are more productive than ever, but their pay hasn't kept pace while top 1% wages have skyrocketed," says the Economic Policy Institute.


Members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) hold a rally at the Richard J. Daley Center plaza on February 26, 2018 in Chicago. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

COMMON DREAMS
September 9, 2022

"Quiet quitting"—an allegedly new trend characterized by workers performing only their required job duties and no more—has been getting a lot of attention in recent weeks, but the defining trend of the past 40 years of U.S. economic history is "quiet fleecing," and we should be talking much more about it.

"The reality is workers have long been going 'above and beyond' and not getting paid for it."

That's the argument put forth Friday by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a progressive think tank with a long track record of popularizing research on wage suppression and runaway inequality.

"Everyone's obsessed with a post-pandemic phenomenon called 'quiet quitting,'" EPI wrote in an email. "It's basically defined as workers just doing the basic requirements of their jobs and not going 'above and beyond.'"

"But the reality is workers have long been going 'above and beyond' and not getting paid for it," EPI continued. "We're calling this phenomenon 'quiet fleecing.'"

To illustrate what is meant by "quiet fleecing," EPI pointed to an animated chart showing that between 1948 and 1979, the nation's economy and working-class wages grew largely in tandem. Although wages began to flatline during the 1970s crisis of stagflation, a 118% increase in productivity during this 31-year period—when Keynesianism was still dominant—was mirrored by a 107% increase in typical worker pay.

But ever since former President Ronald Reagan's neoliberal counterrevolution against unions, public goods provided by the welfare state, and other fixtures of the New Deal era—a pro-corporate and anti-labor agenda that became bipartisan and has only recently lost some of its hegemony—the gap between productivity and typical worker pay has widened dramatically.

According to EPI, net productivity rose 61.8% from 1979 to 2020. Hourly pay, meanwhile, increased by just 17.5% during those 41 years, meaning that productivity grew 3.5 times as much as wages over the past four decades, after adjusting for inflation.



"Workers are more productive than ever," EPI noted Friday, "but employers haven't been sharing the wealth. In fact, they've been fleecing workers for 40 years when it comes to having pay rise with productivity."

"Who's reaping the benefits if workers are getting quietly fleeced?" the think tank asked.

At the same time that typical worker pay has remained largely flat despite climbing productivity, the share of income captured by the top 1% has soared. From 1948 to 2019, the top 1% enjoyed a 407% increase in compensation, with the bulk of those gains coming after 1979.

In a more detailed analysis on the topic, EPI noted that the growing gulf between productivity and typical worker pay represents "income going everywhere but the paychecks of the bottom 80% of workers."

That wedge of income "went into the salaries of highly paid corporate and professional employees," EPI pointed out, "and it went into higher profits (i.e., toward returns to shareholders and other wealth owners)."

"This concentration of wage income at the top (growing wage inequality) and the shift of income from labor overall and toward capital owners (the loss in labor's share of income) are two of the key drivers of economic inequality overall since the late 1970s," the think tank added.

The link between productivity and typical worker pay was deliberately broken by neoliberal policies. As EPI tells it:

Starting in the late 1970s policymakers began dismantling all the policy bulwarks helping to ensure that typical workers' wages grew with productivity. Excess unemployment was tolerated to keep any chance of inflation in check. Raises in the federal minimum wage became smaller and rarer. Labor law failed to keep pace with growing employer hostility toward unions. Tax rates on top incomes were lowered. And anti-worker deregulatory pushes—from the deregulation of the trucking and airline industries to the retreat of antitrust policy to the dismantling of financial regulations and more—succeeded again and again.

In essence, policy choices made to suppress wage growth prevented potential pay growth fueled by rising productivity from translating into actual pay growth for most workers. The result of this policy shift was the sharp divergence between productivity and typical workers' pay shown in the graph.

"There is something fundamentally wrong with the way our current economy distributes wealth and rewards work," the think tank concluded on Friday. So-called quiet quitting "is a symptom of a much bigger and deeper problem."

According to EPI's latest research on the subject, top CEOs in the U.S. were paid 351 times as much as typical workers in 2020.

EPI found that the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 21-to-1 in 1965 and 61-to-1 in 1989. Between 1978 and 2020, researchers noted, CEO pay soared by 1,322% while typical worker pay grew by just 18%.

"For future productivity gains to lead to robust wage growth and widely shared prosperity, we need to institute policies that firmly connect pay and productivity and build worker power," the think tank has argued. "Without policy interventions, economic growth will continue to sputter, and the growth we do see will largely fail to lift typical workers' wages."

Last year, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) unveiled the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act, a proposal to raise taxes on corporations that pay their CEOs over 50 times more than the median worker.

The legislation "would incentivize corporations to both rein in pay at the top and lift up wages—all while generating an estimated $150 billion over 10 years that could be invested in ways that reduce inequality," explained the Institute for Policy Studies' Sarah Anderson, one of many economists who attribute the worsening pay gap to the decadeslong assault on the labor movement and the rise of stock-based compensation for CEOs.

The U.S., Sanders warned when introducing his legislation, is "moving toward an oligarchic form of society where the very rich are doing phenomenally well, and working families are struggling in a way that we have not seen since the Great Depression."

"At a time of massive income and wealth inequality," he added, "the American people are demanding that large, profitable corporations pay their fair share of taxes and treat their employees with the dignity and respect they deserve."

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50 Million People Are Trapped in Modern Slavery Worldwide: Report

Nearly one out of every 150 individuals on Earth was enslaved last year, including roughly 28 million in forced labor and 22 million in forced marriages.


A twelve-year-old works in a silver cooking pot factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh on May 30, 2020. (Photo: Md Manik/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)


KENNY STANCIL

September 12, 2022


Nearly 50 million people were trapped in forced labor or forced marriage on any given day in 2021, according to a new report published Monday, the latest reminder that "the scourge of modern slavery has by no means been relegated to history."

"Nothing can justify the persistence of this fundamental abuse of human rights."

The International Labour Organization (ILO), Walk Free, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) found that the number of people around the globe living in slavery—defined as a situation of "exploitation that a person cannot refuse or cannot leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, or abuse of power"—increased by 9.3 million from 2016 to 2021.

By the authors' estimate, nearly one out of every 150 individuals on Earth was enslaved last year. That includes 27.6 million in forced labor, up from 24.9 million five years ago, and 22 million in forced marriages, up from 15.4 million a half-decade ago.

"It is shocking that the situation of modern slavery is not improving," ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said in a statement. "Nothing can justify the persistence of this fundamental abuse of human rights."

As the report makes clear, "compounding crises—the Covid-19 pandemic, armed conflicts, and climate change—in recent years have led to unprecedented disruption to employment and education, increases in extreme poverty and forced and unsafe migration, and an upsurge in reports of gender-based violence."

This confluence of factors serves "to heighten the risk of all forms of modern slavery," says the report. "As is usually the case, it is those who are already in situations of greatest vulnerability—including the poor and socially excluded, workers in the informal economy, irregular or otherwise unprotected migrant workers, and people subject to discrimination—who are most affected."

Modern slavery "occurs in almost every country in the world, and cuts across ethnic, cultural, and religious lines," the ILO, Walk Free, and IOM noted. "More than half (52%) of all forced labor and a quarter of all forced marriages can be found in upper-middle-income or high-income countries."

The vast majority (86%) of forced labor happens in the private sector, while the remainder (14%) is imposed by state authorities. Commercial sexual exploitation accounts for 23% of private-sector forced labor, and almost four-fifths of those trafficking victims are women or girls. The remaining 63% of private-sector forced labor occurs in other industries.

Nearly one in eight of the roughly 28 million people subjected to forced labor last year were children (3.3 million). More than half of them were trapped in commercial sexual exploitation.

Although an estimated 22 million people were living in forced marriages in 2021, the "true incidence of forced marriage, particularly involving children aged 16 and younger, is likely far greater," according to the three groups that assembled the report. While every child marriage should be considered forced "because a child cannot legally give consent to marry," current estimates "are based on a narrow definition and do not include all child marriages."

Compared with their non-migrant counterparts, migrant workers are over three times more likely to be pushed into forced labor. This injustice, the trio of organizations said, can be attributed to "irregular or poorly governed migration, or unfair and unethical recruitment practices."

According to António Vitorino, director-general of the IOM, the new report "underscores the urgency of ensuring that all migration is safe, orderly, and regular."

"Reducing the vulnerability of migrants to forced labor and trafficking in persons depends first and foremost on national policy and legal frameworks that respect, protect, and fulfill the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all migrants—and potential migrants—at all stages of the migration process, regardless of their migration status," said Vitorino. "The whole of society must work together to reverse these shocking trends, including through implementation of the Global Compact on Migration."



Modern slavery, said Walk Free founding director Grace Forrest, "continues to underpin our global economy," but that doesn't have to be the case.

"It is a man-made problem, connected to both historical slavery and persisting structural inequality," said Forrest. "In a time of compounding crises, genuine political will is the key to ending these human rights abuses."

Ryder, for his part, said that "we know what needs to be done, and we know it can be done."

To abolish modern slavery, the ILO, Walk Free, and IOM recommend that the following steps be taken jointly and immediately:Improve and enforce laws and labor inspections;
End state-imposed forced labor;
Implement stronger measures to combat forced labor and trafficking in business and supply chains;
Extend social protection and strengthen legal protections, including by raising the legal age of marriage to 18 without exception;
Address the increased risk of trafficking and forced labor for migrant workers by promoting fair and ethical recruitment; and
Increase support for women, girls, and vulnerable individuals.

"Effective national policies and regulation are fundamental," said Ryder. "But governments cannot do this alone. International standards provide a sound basis, and an all-hands-on-deck approach is needed. Trade unions, employers' organizations, civil society, and ordinary people all have critical roles to play."

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EU aims to ban products, imports made with forced labor - document

WILL THAT INCLUDE U$A PRISON LABOR

Foo Yun Chee
Sep 09, 2022 •

BRUSSELS — Products made with forced labor or those imported into the 27-country European Union will be banned under draft rules, according to an EU document seen by Reuters, a move driven by EU lawmakers concerned about human rights in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.

However, the European Commission’s draft rules are less far-reaching than what EU lawmakers have proposed due in part to legal constraints.

The EU executive, which will announce its proposal on Tuesday, will need to thrash out details with lawmakers and EU countries before the rules can become law.

“Such prohibition should apply to products for which forced labor has been used at any stage of their production, manufacture, harvest and extraction, including working or processing related to the products,” the document said.

“The prohibition should apply to all products, of any type, including their components, and should apply to products regardless of the sector, the origin, whether they are domestic or imported, or placed or made available on the Union market or exported.”

The rules target larger economic operators such as importers, manufacturers, producers and product suppliers because the risks of forced labor are most prevalent and the impact likely to be the largest, the paper said.

The onus however is on national authorities to prove that forced labor was involved in making and processing the products, while preliminary investigations should be wrapped up within 30 working days.

They can then get customs bodies to block the circulation of the products or withdraw them from the market.

A database of forced labor risk in specific geographic areas or specific products made with forced labor imposed by state authorities will be set up and made available to the public.

The United States enacted a law last year, the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act (UFLPA), to safeguard its market from products potentially tainted by human rights abuses in Xinjiang, where the U.S. government says China is committing genocide against Uyghur Muslims.

China denies abuses in Xinjiang, a major cotton producer that also supplies much of the world’s materials for solar panels, and says the law “slanders” the country’s human rights situation. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by David Evans and Jonathan Oatis)

Workers Undermined Canada’s Attempt to Crush the Bolshevik Revolution

The Bolsheviks held power in Russia for mere months before 13-Allied states, in unison with White Russian and Czecho-Slovak Legion fighters, launched a four-front war to squash the revolution. Among the more than 2,000,000 troops that would eventually enter combat was just over 4,000 Canadians who made up the Canadian Expeditionary Force (Siberia) (CEFS). This was Canada’s first foray into combat on their own terms, formally acting independently of the British. The government saw it as a chance to prove their newfound independence and share in the spoils of war. Instead, the expedition ended up as an abject failure, due in large part to the growing labour movement in Canada.

Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden had several reasons to move against the Bolshevik government, which he refused to recognize. The Canadian bourgeois class had long eyed Russia’s far-east as a lucrative land due to its vast resources. The Provisional Government had made efforts to assure them that they’d be able to conduct their business, with the land open for investments. Yet the Bolsheviks were not willing to sell out their country, and began nationalizing industries, as well as gold. They also repudiated nearly 13 billion rubles in loans to the Allies.

There were several military related reasons offered as well. Intervening against the Bolsheviks could bring Russia back into the war, therefore forcing Germany to resume a multipronged battle. Benjamin Isitt, the author of the seminal history of the CEFS, From Victoria to Vladivostok, wrote that, “The Canadian bourgeoisie, which became rich during the world war, tried to gain independence, especially in foreign policy. It believed that Canadian participation in the intervention would help to reach this goal.” Finally, the Bolsheviks were perceived as an ideological threat that could cause widespread damage, at home and abroad, if left unchecked.

Canadian prime minister Sir Robert Borden joined by a young Sir Winston Churchill, London, July 1918. It was at meetings of the Imperial War Cabinet in the summer of 1918 where Canadians, British and other imperial leaders decided to send troops to Siberia to intervene in Russia’s civil war. Photo via Department of National Defence, Canadian Military Journal Collection

On July 9, 1918, the British War Office sent a request to Borden asking if he could make troops available to “restore order and a stable government” in Siberia, join forces with the Czecho-Slovak Legion, and restart combat with Germany on the Eastern Front. Borden began discussing the venture with advisors, and on July 28, the Privy Council approved the expedition. By August 13, the details of the CEFS were made public: more than 4,000 troops — including 135 Russian members of the Czar’s former army and a one woman, a nurse — and 3,000,000 rounds of ammunition would be sent from Victoria, B.C. to Vladivostok, a port city in Russia’s far-east that would come to be the launching point for Western intervention. The Canadian army would also operate independently of the British.

As the government was pulling together the CEFS, socialism was exploding in popularity in Canada, with strikes breaking out and new unions emerging. The turmoil, which had spread throughout the country but was most potent in B.C. and other Western provinces, was largely due to conscription, introduced by Borden through the Military Service Act on August 29, 1917.

The government was aware of this unrest, and made moves to combat it, both for the sake of business at home and the ability of the CEFS to be successful abroad. According to Isitt, “The same attitudes that shaped Allied strategy in Russia — the use of force to quash Bolshevism — informed domestic responses to labor unrest.” This included: Privy Council Order 2384, brought into law on September 28, 1918, which made 14 working class and socialist organizations illegal under periods of war; the banning of several socialist publications; the censorship of popular socialist texts (those found to be in possession of Vladimir Lenin’s “Political Parties in Russia” essay could be punished with five-years imprisonment or a $5000 fine); the banishment of labor strikes, with a clause that allowed the government to force strikers into the army. Yet despite this feverish attempt to crack down on burgeoning radicals, they would end up undermining the CEFS.

Of the nearly 5000 troops that ended up in Victoria, 1653 were conscripts, and very few were eager for the journey ahead of them. The condition in the camps they were stationed at was brutal, with the outbreak of the Spanish flu preventing public gatherings, outdoor training made impossible at times due to flooded fields from tremendous amounts of rain, and poor lodgings. Moreover, the Armistice announced on November 11, midway through the troops stay in Victoria, further sapped any morale to continue fighting, especially as half of those assembled had fought in Europe.

B.C. radicals seized upon this disaffection, and inundated the soldiers with propaganda, seeking to portray the expedition into Siberia as a war for the rich, at the expense of the poor. The labor radicals distributed leaflets to soldiers, and held several increasingly popular mass meetings where they called for “Hands off Russia.” On December 8, the Federated Labor Party held its inaugural meeting. Over 700 CEFS members attended, with hundreds more being turned away. On December 13, the Victoria Trades and Labor Council held another protest meeting, which was also well attended by CEFS troops.

259th Battalion conscripts at a “Hands Off Russia” mass meeting on December 13. Photo via Sidney Rodger Collection, Beamsville, Ontario

The reaction from the troops at these meetings made it evident that they had little enthusiasm for the war. An article in the now defunct British Columbia Federationist newspaper said of the first meeting that “the way those boys applauded the Labor speakers showed in no uncertain manner where their sympathies lay.” Of the second meeting, the paper reported “the whole house, composed mostly of the Siberian contingent, were unanimous in expressing their sentiments to the withdrawal of the troops.”

The troops were also disgusted with their officers, who had stormed the stage at the December 13 meeting, singing “God Save the King” in an attempt to drown out the speakers. The budding unity between the soldiers and radicals caused such fear in the ruling class that B.C.’s lieutenant-governor, Frank S. Barnard, sent a letter to Borden asking him to bring battle cruisers on the shores, “if for no other reason, than for that of having a force to quell, if necessary, any rising upon the part of the IWW.”

This uprising didn’t come, but there was a mutiny launched by several troops on December 21, the day the first of the soldiers were to be deployed to Vladivostok. The men set to depart that day, from the 259th Battalion and 20th Machine Gun Company, had been prone to dissent since they were recruited. For a few days, there had been rumblings among them that they’d make a last ditch stand against their deployment.

Soldiers in the 259th Battalion being inspected by their commanding officer. Photo via Library and Archives Canada, Dorothy I. Perrin Collection.

Midway through their 3.5 mile march from the camp to the outer wharves, the troops stopped for a break. Several of them refused to get back in line when the whistle rang out, leading the colonel of the column to fire his gun over their heads, in the middle of the Victoria streets. This caused some of the men to get in line, but many still stood in their place. At this point, according to an account of the events from a lieutenant, published in the BC Federationist, “the other two companies from Ontario were ordered to take off their belts and whip the poor devils into line, and they did it with a will, and we proceeded.” The dissenters were then put under armed guard until they had boarded the boat. The lieutenant went on to write that “this company continued the march virtually at the point of the bayonet, they being far more closely guarded than any group of German prisoners I ever saw, and they were put under armed guard till we actually pulled out to sea, and even now a dozen of the ringleaders are in the cells — the two worst handcuffed together — awaiting trial.”

Canadian command tried their best to prevent news of the uprising from leaking out. Two days after the event, one of the CEFS commanding officers wired Ernest J. Chambers, Canada’s chief press censor, claiming the mutiny simply hadn’t occurred. Chambers then demanded all newspaper editors across the country suppress any news of the mutiny because it would “only cause unrest and bring discredit to our soldiers.” Letters from commanding officers, moreover, attempted to downplay the extent of dissent among the troops, portraying them simply as uneducated French-Canadians who were misled by “socialistic agitation.” Yet according to Isitt “these accounts distort the experience, and deny the agency, of British Columbia’s working class and simplify the motivations of the Quebecois troops themselves.”

Regardless, the mutiny was unsuccessful, as the men were shipped off the next morning, the first of the major deployments to Vladivostok. They arrived on January 12. The rest of the troops, deployed over the next month, arrived on January 15, and February 3, 18, and 27. The troubled CEFS had finally reached the shores of Vladivostok, but things only got worse.

The vast majority of Canadians never left Vladivostok, which one rifleman referred to as a “God forsaken hole,” throughout the entire time there. They saw little bloodshed, besides their ventures into the local red light district. One of the members of the CEFS, Captain Eric Elkington, wrote, “There was an awful place known as the ‘bucket of blood’ … where the troops would go in and there were just these sort of cubicles, and you could see the action which you liked best. Oh, that was the devil, trying to keep these lads away from that place.’” The problem became so severe, according to Isitt, that, “Between one-quarter and one-half of all Canadian hospital beds were occupied by patients with venereal disease, prompting the force command to threaten to ship afflicted troops back to Canada and to inform family members of the cause.” One of the men with the battalion was even shot in the penis by a sex worker.

The Canadian hospital in Vladivostok, which held many of the STI-ridden soldiers. Photo via Eric Elkington Collection, Ladysmith, British Columbia

Other than their sexual romps, Canadian troops played sports, held plays and concerts, and attended lectures. They also tried to help combat the rampant crime in Vladivostok where, according to a member of the CEFS, “It was said that one could have a man’s throat cut for a ruble.”

Just 50 troops got sent upcountry to Omsk, 3500 miles west of Vladivostok. The only action throughout the entire expedition was when a small group of Canadians, as well as Japanese, French, Italian, Czechoslovak, Chinese and White Russian soldiers, took a 14 mile trek to the town of Shkotovo, which had been attacked by partisans trying to free over 700 Bolshevik prisoners. When they arrived, according to Rifleman Harold Steele, there was only “one old man and a couple of women” left, as the Bolsheviks had already evacuated. There were only two injuries in the expedition: a French soldier accidentally shot a Japanese and Canadian soldier as he was testing his weapon.

The CEFS’ inaction was due in part to the mixed Allied strategy for how to combat the Bolsheviks and the dwindling confidence in the White Russian forces, but also the lack of support from even the governing class at home. After the Armistice was announced, acting Canadian Prime Minister Sir Thomas White begged Borden, who was on his way to the peace talks, to call off the CEFS. In the telegram, White wrote, “All our colleagues are of the opinion that public opinion here will not sustain us in continuing to send troops, many of whom are draftees under the Military Service Act and Order in Council, now that the war is ended.” On December 22, 1918, the Privy Council prevented the CEFS from being deployed up country, where the fighting was happening, due in part to public opinion. Then, in early January, a troopship planned to join the fight was cancelled, and the 85th Field Battery demobilized, due to “increasing popular opposition.”

This increase in anti-war sentiment was not a coincidence. Beyond merely radicalizing the soldiers in Victoria, Canada’s labor movement played a serious role in building the opposition to the war throughout the country. Labor councils in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Winnipeg, as well as labor federations of Alberta and B.C., announced their opposition to the CEFS. They were joined by machinist and railway worker AFL-affiliated union locals, who all worked to bring the public to their side.

On February 13, as pressure on the government continued to mount, Borden wrote to British Prime Minister Lloyd George, telling him the CEFS would return in early spring. Finally, on April 21, just four months after the first set of troops were deployed, departures began. Over the next six weeks, all of the troops would be sent home, on four different voyages. Many of the troops had been further radicalized there, including five of the Russian-born Canadian troops who deserted, and some stashed Bolshevik propaganda in their bags to distribute when they got home. In the end, 19 of the more than 4,000 troops who were sent to Vladivostok did not return. Sixteen of them died from disease, two from accidents on the journeys there and back, and one by suicide.

The CEFS was decried by some politicians back in Canada. In March 1919, before the troops had even come home, Dr. Hermas Deslauriers, a Member of Parliament (MP) for a Montreal riding, told a public meeting that the CEFS should “be considered a crime.” Canada’s trade commissioner to Vladivostok and first ambassador to the Soviet Union, Dana Wilgress, stated that the CEFS was “conceived as part of a concerted plan to overthrow the Communist regime that had seized power in Russia,” and as such, that it was a complete failure. On June 10, 1919, MP Henri Sévérin Béland told the House of Commons the CEFS was “a political error, a military mistake, and a wanton extravagance.” The CEFS has also since been harshly criticized by medical researchers who have labeled it as the “greatest single factor in the diffusion of [influenza],” with troops travelling across Canada infecting towns in their path “like an invading army ravaging a foreign country.”

The treatment of the men who launched the December 21 mutiny is another indicator of the admission of error by the ruling class. Forty of these men were initially arrested, and the ring leaders received sentences ranging from 28 days of field punishment to three years of hard labor, partially to deter other troops from expressing their mounting discontent. Yet in April 1919, as it became abundantly clear the CEFS was an error, all of the men who had been convicted were released on suspended sentences.

Yet while the CEFS was widely decried, and many of those who opposed it excused, the Canadian government did not see fighting communism as a mistake. They erred in execution, but believed the intended goal was noble. Their renewed battle began when the CEFS arrived back in Canada, as Isitt writes it “sharpened the divide between workers, employers, and the state, driving a section of workers into open sympathy with the Russian Bolsheviks.” Upon returning to Canadian shores, 150 Royal Northwest Mounted Police (RNWMP) Mounties were hit with a barrage of bricks and stones from longshoremen. Meanwhile, general strikes had broken out around the country.

A May 1919 anti-strike rally in Winnipeg, linking the general strike with Bolshevism and the “enemy alien.” Photo via Canada’s Visual History

Responding to these events, Borden: doubled the size of the militia meant to control these outbreaks to 10,000 troops; broke a general strike in Winnipeg with the army and RNWMP Mounties, leaving two dead and 50 injured; authorized broader RNWMP actions attempting to squash radicals across the country. Police powers were drastically broadened, dissidents were deported without trials, and the newly formed Royal Canadian Mounted Police quickly opened files on over 4,800 Canadians within 10 years.

The state also moved to erase the CEFS from collective Canadian consciousness. On October 17, 1919, a B.C. Federationist article presciently predicted that this history “never will be told if the ruling class of the Allied nations can prevent it.” World War One is commemorated by the Canadian state each year, yet little attention is ever given to the failed Siberian venture, which only makes up six pages of Canada’s official World War One history. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth portion of a cemetery in Vladivostok languished in squalor for decades, until 1996 when restoration efforts began.

The Canadian and British plot at the Marine Cemetery in Vladivostok. Photo via Benjamin Isitt

This is tragic. Canadians deserve to be well acquainted with the CEFS, as its purpose is emblematic of wars in the following decades: motivated directly or indirectly by profit, for the ruling class at the expense of the poor sent to die, and in opposition to liberation movements across the globe. It is also a reminder that these efforts can be defeated.

Written by Davide Mastracci 

SEE 

 https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=1919

 https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=GENERAL+STRIKE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BOLSHEVIKS

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/08/canadas-first-internment-camps.html