Buffalo, New York, Nov. 10 (U.S.): Never in its 50-year history has Starbucks relied on union workers to serve latte like its coffee shops in the United States. But some baristas are aiming to change that.
Workers at three separate Starbucks stores in and around Buffalo, New York, are expected to begin voting by mail this week on whether they want to be represented by Workers United, a subsidiary of Service Employees International, according to the Associated Press (AP). .
The Buffalo National Labor Relations Board’s regional office, which approved the vote last month, is due to begin mailing ballots Wednesday evening and counting the votes on December 9.
Starbucks appealed late Monday, asking for the election to be postponed while the full NLRB waits in Washington to review its case. But voting may continue even with that review.
It’s a rare union vote for the coffee giant, which has fought off a handful of other union efforts over the past two decades. It comes at a time of growing labor unrest across Amazon warehouses in the US, and Amazon warehouse workers in New York are also seeking union elections this fall, while thousands of union workers at Deere & Co. and Kellogg Co.
Many workers are exhausted and tired of playing by pre-coronavirus rules, said Dan Graf, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame. They have been considered essential during the pandemic, but they are still found to suffer from inflation, childcare and a lack of respect for employers and clients.
“It is a very precarious public place we live in now and more workers have had the opportunity to think and think about these issues,” Graf said.
Pro-union workers say they deserve more from Starbucks, which posted record sales of $29 billion in fiscal 2021. They say the company had chronic problems even before the pandemic, including stores with understaffed and faulty equipment. They want a bigger role in how stores are run and how much workers are paid.
said Jazz Brisack, who worked for about a year at Starbucks in downtown Buffalo. Brisack also helped orchestrate a successful union effort at Spot Coffee, a small Buffalo chain, in 2019.
Starbucks notes its generous benefits, including paid parental leave, a 401(k) program, and free college tuition through Arizona State University. Late last month, it announced wage increases, saying that all of its American employees would be paid at least $15–and up to $23/hour–by next summer.
The Seattle-based company says that its 8,000 company-owned stores perform best when the company works directly with its employees.
“Every success we’ve ever had has been in direct partnership with each other—without an outsider between us,” Rusan Williams, president of Starbucks North America, said in a recent letter to employees who urged a “no” vote in Buffalo. “
Graf said Starbucks’ reputation as a generous employer is one reason why it’s an ideal target for union regulators.
“When companies portray themselves as good employers who care about workers, that often sets expectations for workers,” Graf said.
About 111 employees — including those in the Brisack store and in two Buffalo stores — will be eligible to vote to join unions. The NLRB denied Starbucks’ request for a single vote with 20 Buffalo-area stores and ordered separate votes for the three stores. A majority vote in any of the stores will create a bargaining unit for that location.
Brisack and other workers say Williams and Starbucks founder Howard Schultz are among company representatives who have thronged to Buffalo in recent weeks, even closing stores for team meetings. In this week’s NLRB filing, United Workers accused Starbucks of threatening, intimidating and monitoring workers.
There is a lot at stake for Starbucks. Caroline Plumb, assistant professor of legal studies at La Salle University Business School, said private sector employers are almost uniformly against unions because they often lead to higher labor costs and lower flexibility. Union membership gives workers the legal right to strike and forces employers to negotiate hiring, firing, and promotion.
Starbucks has fought union efforts before. Earlier this summer, the NLRB found that Starbucks illegally retaliated against two Philadelphia baristas who were fired by the company in 2019 after trying to form a citywide union. The board of directors ordered Starbucks to halt its efforts and reinstate these workers.
The company has a few syndicate locations in other countries, including a store in Victoria, Canada, that was organized in June.
US labor law largely favors employers, with weak penalties for those who interfere in union elections. As a result, only about 6% of private sector employees in the United States are unionized, compared to about a third of public sector employees such as teachers, said Cathy Creighton, director of the Cornell University Laboratory for Industrial and Labor Relations in Buffalo.
Creighton said unions could actually help the company. She said better paid workers are more stable and less likely to leave.
“A low-paid work force is not a productive workforce,” she said.
Organizing efforts at Starbucks are already beginning to spread. On Tuesday, three additional Buffalo-area stores petitioned to form unions, evidence that momentum is building, said Michelle Eisen, leader of union efforts.
However, not every Starbucks worker supports the union’s campaign. Tia Corthion has worked at Starbucks in suburban Buffalo for two years and was recently promoted to shift supervisor.
Corthion, who has also worked at Walmart and Home Depot, says Starbucks is one of her best employers. She appreciates the benefits and says she feels the company listens when she makes suggestions.
“If I can say something is wrong and the problem is fixed, why do we need to pay someone to fix the things we need to do?” Corthion said.
Graf said that even if employees at the three stores vote in favor of the unions, there is no guarantee that they will receive a contract.
If the union vote survives the appeal and is approved by the NLRB, the employer is legally obligated to begin the collective bargaining process. But all too often, companies delay this process, as there is no law obligating both sides to enter into a contract.
More than half of workers who vote to form a union without a collective bargaining agreement are still after a year, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank. In 2017, workers at a Dollar General store in Missouri voted to join a union; After legal appeals were exhausted, the dollar of the year ended up closing the store.
“In the United States today, if an employer does not want to accept unions in the workplace, that is unlikely to happen,” Graf said.
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