Philly is one of the first cities in the country to formally support boycotting Starbucks | Council roundup

Just in time for pumpkin spice latte season, Philadelphia City Council members are giving up Starbucks — and they want you to do the same.

Council voted unanimously on Thursday to make Philadelphia one of the first cities in the country to explicitly endorse a nationwide boycott of Starbucks amid a unionization drive, and to pledge not to use city funds at the coffee chain until it reaches a contract agreement with its workers.

Also during Council’s session on Thursday: Councilmember Jamie Gauthier introduced controversial legislation to approve a contract with a trash incinerator that she doesn’t support. We’ll explain.

Council puts Starbucks on ice: The expression of solidarity with Starbucks workers is a ceremonial resolution that does not carry the weight of law and doesn’t require approval from Mayor Cherelle L. Parker.

Still, Council’s vote was a formal endorsement of the boycott orchestrated by Starbucks Workers United and targeting the world’s largest coffee chain, which is already reducing its footprint in the city. Starbucks closed six Philadelphia locations last year, and two additional branches — one at 2201 South St. in Center City and the other at 1018 N. Second St. in Northern Liberties — closed on Sunday.

The only other city to formally support the unionization effort is St. Louis, where last week the city’s Board of Aldermen approved a resolution to “express solidarity with Starbucks Workers United as they call for a boycott of Starbucks.”

» READ MORE: Starbucks is closing three stores in Philly and South Jersey

Over the last five years, baristas have unionized at hundreds of individual Starbucks locations, but the company has not agreed to a nationwide contract that the union has sought. The union in August called for a nationwide boycott to last until an agreement is reached.

Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke, a member of the progressive Working Families Party who represents the city at large, authored the legislation and said its passage is “another affirmation of Philadelphia being a union town.”

“I am always interested in making sure that businesses in the city of Philadelphia and people are thriving,” O’Rourke said. “But my first priority is always to make sure that workers and workers’ conditions are right and that they are respected.”

Council is controlled by a supermajority of Democrats, and the body is largely supportive of organized labor.

Council President Kenyatta Johnson said he backs the Starbucks boycott, even though he is generally not a big coffee drinker.

“Unfortunately, they do have a vegan breakfast sandwich,” said Johnson, who follows a plant-based diet. “But I won’t be having those any time soon.”

A spokesperson for Starbucks said in a statement Thursday that the company is “committed to engaging in productive bargaining.”

Introducing legislation she doesn’t support: Thursday’s meeting featured another twist in the long-running debate over a Chester trash incinerator and how Philadelphia gets rids of its garbage. Gauthier, a progressive Democrat who has advocated for the city to stop burning its trash, introduced legislation that would allow the city to continue doing so.

» READ MORE: Philly City Council returns with dueling plans for the city’s trash

Here’s why: the Parker administration is looking to renew its long-held contract with Reworld, the Chester waste-to-energy facility where the city ships about one-third of its trash to be burned. (The rest of the trash is sent to landfills.)

In order to renew the multiyear contract, Council must approve authorizing legislation. Gauthier, who previously floated a bill to ban the city from incinerating trash but did not garner enough support to pass it, is asking her fellow lawmakers to vote against the contract renewal.

Although it may seem like a reversal of her position, Gauthier introducing the legislation herself — even when she doesn’t support it — will allow her to have some say when a committee holds a hearing on the legislation. She hopes to amend it to strike Reworld from the deal so that the city processes all trash and recycling through landfills.

“It gives me and my coalition an opportunity to be at the table on something that we fought really hard on for more than a year now,” she said in an interview. “We’ve been working really hard to make sure that we’re protecting the health of folks in Chester and in Philadelphia, and protecting our environment.”

Johnson will decide which committee will hear the bill. He said Thursday that he is still reviewing the legislation.

Mamdani-fication: Create a Philly Medicaid Supplement Program. Expand access to programs that provide transit subsidies to low-income Philadelphians. Use city money to buy properties with expiring federal affordable housing subsidies.

These were some of the recommendations included in the Affordable Philly Now report, which was recently released by the Cost of Living Task Force.

O’Rourke, who convened the task force, held a committee hearing Wednesday examining the report’s findings, and he was not shy about noting that it was partly inspired by another progressive a few miles up I-95.

“You cannot deny the profound impact that … Mayor Zohran Mamdani has had,” O’Rourke said, praising the New Yorker for “mixing moonshot municipal goals with sewer socialism” and working to build a “protective hedge” of social safety net programs.

» READ MORE: Pa. Democrats have mostly positive view of socialism as progressive candidates secure wins

Wednesday’s hearing was a meeting of the Committee on Global Opportunities and the Creative/Innovative Economy, which O’Rourke chairs. As a freshman and a member of a minority party, O’Rourke does not have a high-profile committee leadership post like some of the more senior Democratic lawmakers on Council. His committee was previously led by former GOP Councilmember David Oh and does not naturally align with O’Rourke’s progressive politics.

O’Rourke said at the committee hearing Wednesday — the first time he chaired a Council hearing — that he was shifting the panel’s work.

“The prior version of this committee revolved around corporate investment fitting into global value chains and making Philadelphia an international destination,” O’Rourke said. “In my reflection on the meaning of the committee, I have spent more time focusing on a part of the committee’s mandate that actually seems more in its merit — that is, to consider all matters related to making Philadelphia a world-class city. … And in some seasons, world-class cities show themselves by being bold in providing a protective hedge for its people.”

That was former Mayor John F. Street, the erstwhile City Council president who returned to his old workplace Thursday to speak during public comment. He was testifying in support of a resolution to honor Philadelphia Police Lt. Greg Brown, who was, among other assignments, a member of Street’s security detail and is now retiring.

Street said Brown was one of the few people he never got to humiliate, because Brown “always got it right.”

“I never had a chance to put him on any list,” Street said.