This Must Be That Sinister Phase Two.

There's not just coffee brewing at Starbucks, but apparently trouble as well.

A while back, the Onion had an article on the ominous start of 'phase two' of Starbucks global plan for whatever it is they plan for globally.

Apparently three Manhattan Starbucks' stores and 15 officials have been found by the National Labor Relations Board to be guilty several counts of illegal anti-union activity.

They told workers they couldn't wear union pins, they dinged workers down on their evaluations for their support of a union. They even fired two workers for joining the International Workers of the World.

A friend and I were talking about this effort by the IWW (really a tiny, tiny, union without much clout) to organize Starbucks Baristas. He concluded that if Starbucks were smart (in addition to being merely sinister) they'd simply co-opt the union and use it for marketing purposes. The IWW probably wouldn't know what to do with itself, finding its logo, culture and history being used to market lattes to soccer moms.