Elgin Area Chamber Of Commerce: First Starbucks Store Unionized, Jobless Claims Fall To More Than 50-Year Low, Murdoch Reportedly Bu

Elgin IL

11 December, 2021

2:29 AM

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Press release from the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce: December 10, 2021 Starbucks employees celebrate after the votes were counted in Buffalo, New York, that unionized the first store in the company's 50-year history. (Getty Images) By Richard Lawson CoStar News   First Starbucks Store Unionized A Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York, is the first of the Seattle-based company's 9,000 stores to unionize. The National Labor Relations Board confirmed the results for the store Wednesday night. Baristas at another store in Buffalo rejected the unionizing while a third is still in question, the Associated Press reported. Baristas at the three Buffalo stores had sought the union route in August, registering frustrations that the stores were understaffed with insufficient training. Starbucks, like many companies in the food and beverage industry, has been struggling to hire staff as the economy strengthens during the pandemic. Starbucks had tried to fight the single-store unionization effort but the National Labor Relations Board ruled against the 50-year-old company. The company also made moves with staffing ahead of the election, such as filling stores with employees to deal with shortages while temporarily closing others, the New York Times reported. Starbucks told the Times that the staffing moves were standard course of business and that they likely wouldn't prompt election results being tossed. Representatives for Starbucks did not immediately respond to an email from CoStar News seeking a comment. Jobless Claims Fall New claims for unemployment declined last week to their lowest level in more than five decades, signaling strength in job growth. The Labor Department reported Thursday that 184,000 jobless claims were filed last week, a decrease of 43,000 from the previous week and the lowest level since Sept. 6, 1969. The previous week had been revised up by 5,000 to 227,000. These are seasonally adjusted claims, which some economists have said distorts the actual number. Instead, they point to the unadjusted number of actual job claims, which increased 63,680 from the previous week to 280,665 last week. Two weeks ago, the government agency reported 199,000 new claims, which was the lowest since November 1969. That number was revised downward by 5,000 in the agency's report last week, which also lowered the unadjusted number by more than 41,000. The numbers show some of the volatility in the jobs market but remain far below last year's figures.   Rupert Murdoch Reportedly Buy Cattle Ranch Billionaire Rupert Murdoch and his wife Jerry reportedly bought an operating cattle ranch in Montana near Yellowstone National Park for $200 million. Citing people with knowledge of the deal, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Murdochs acquired the 340,000-acre Beaverhead Ranch from Matador Cattle Co, a subsidiary of Koch Industries. Murdoch's News Corp. owns the Wall Street Journal. Fred Koch, the late founder of Koch Industries, started building the ranching business in the 1940s, according to Matador's website. He died in 1967 but his sons Charles and David continued with the ranching business. David Koch died two years ago. Murdoch told the Journal through a spokesman that "we feel privileged to assume ownership of this beautiful land and look forward to continually enhancing both the commercial cattle business and the conservation assets across the ranch." About 226,000 acres of the ranch include grazing rights, according to the Journal. Source: www.CoStar.com This press release was produced by the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce. The views expressed here are the author's own.