After decades of low wages, harsh working conditions and few benefits, unionization is having a hot moment in the US food and beverage industry. Starbucks, the famous Seattle-based coffee chain, has seen a wave of unionization across the country in recent months, with workers at more than 60 locations in 14 states organizing. And of course, the company has not exactly given a good welcome to these groupings.
In fact, workers say Starbucks has engaged in a wide range of anti-union practices, from actively encouraging employees to vote against it to allegedly firing those involved.
How did it all begin? The current wave of unionization at Starbucks began in Buffalo, New York, where workers at two stores voted to unionize as Starbucks Workers United in December 2021. Although the union has not yet filed official demands with the company, one worker explained in this article that he hopes the union will secure a minimum wage of 22 euros for baristas, in addition to improvements in benefits provided by the company, such as mental health care plans.
The drive to unionize quickly spread, first to Starbucks locations in Boston, and now to 60 stores in 19 states, including Arizona, Washington, Illinois, Florida, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia and California. However, not all campaigns have been successful: Of three locations in Buffalo, one voted against unionizing. Each store has unionized individually, although Starbucks has asked the NLRB to require stores in the same area to vote together.
The company’s response. Starbucks strongly opposes unionization efforts in its stores. In addition to asking the NLRB to delay certification of Buffalo’s union election results, the company asked the agency to bar Starbucks workers from organizing their stores individually.
The company also operates a website called We Are One Starbucks, which encourages “partners,” as it calls its employees, to vote against the union. “We don’t think unions are necessary at Starbucks because we know that real problems are solved through direct partnership with each other,” the website reads.
sabotaged. Even companies like Microsoft Outlook have taken a stand against the company’s attempts to crush the union movement. Starbucks’ apparent strategy of delaying the entire legal process backfired when Microsoft Outlook apparently crashed into Starbucks’ attorneys. To make its case for a larger union election, Starbucks had to submit what is known as a position statement to the labor board and union by noon on February 11. Apparently the company’s lawyers didn’t send out all the paperwork until 12:08.
They explained the mishap, saying that the files attached to the emails were too large: “Just before noon, the attorney attempted to send the full service email a second time, but was again prevented from doing so when Outlook crashed again.” A coincidence? We do not know.
Anti-union practices. Meanwhile, Starbucks has launched an aggressive counteroffensive to stifle union sentiment, intimidate workers and interfere with daily operations. The company held mandatory weekly anti-union meetings, temporarily closed unionized stores, flooded stores with corporate executives, and raised wages. In January, a Buffalo bartender explained that Starbucks sent dozens of “support managers” to his store and other locations in the area to monitor union activity.
Mass layoffs. The workers, a third of the total workforce at the Memphis location, were laid off a few weeks ago, including most of the union organizing committee. The firings stem from a media event last month when employees allowed journalists into the cafe after hours as part of a public launch of their efforts to unionize.
According to the company, the employees who were fired had violated certain Starbucks policies. But union organizers say the workers were targeted because of their union activity and that the policy had not been applied “evenly” before the firing of these workers.
Cassie’s case. This Starbucks worker had been an employee of the company for more than 5 years. Until now. On a post that went viral on Twitter, recounted how she was fired after reducing her availability after getting a full-time job elsewhere. Sure enough, she had worked on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, New York, the first of 9,000 stores to unionize.
BREAKING: Starbucks has fired one of the leading @SBWorkersUnited union organizers in Buffalo.
Cassie Fleischer worked at Starbucks for five years. She helped Elmwood become the first unionized store in company history and is on the union’s bargaining committee. pic.twitter.com/GDg8vYydAi
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) February 21, 2022
“This is not the company I joined in 2017 and this further demonstrates that we need a union in our stores. Starbucks is making a huge mistake and I will spend all this time supporting my partners through the union in any way I can.” “, he pointed out.
A national boost. Workers at chains like Chipotle and McDonald’s are already organizing unions at an unprecedented rate, likely due to pandemic-induced stress and financial hardship. The costs of everything from food to gasoline have risen, wages are stagnant, and that makes unionization a very attractive prospect.
The union’s victory sends a message not only to Starbucks workers across the country, but also to workers in low-wage, high-turnover industries, who have long shunned unionization in the United States.
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