On December 12, 2021, the first Starbucks location to organize surfaced in Buffalo, New York. The cup soon runneth over as the corporate giant’s baristas influenced workers elsewhere, not only at coffee shops but within other industries, to seek outside representation. Only a year ago, few could have imagined this fate for Starbucks, but it’s a telling example of how organizing campaigns can seemingly spread like wildfire.
Starbucks Workers United now claims 200 unionized cafes with eyes on more. The union also secured a $1 million strike fund, which it’s using to its advantage, from Minneapolis to Philadelphia and beyond. Starbucks has now seen strikes in 17 states as the union pushes for higher wages and increased focus on worker safety. The strike at Boston University’s cafe just turned into a month-long ordeal.
As if that wasn’t enough, Starbucks continues to clash with the NLRB, which has ordered the company to reinstate seven workers in Memphis after a U.S. district judge found enough evidence to rule that they were allegedly fired for their organizing activity. The NLRB also dismissed a Starbucks complaint against rallying Phoenix organizers who allegedly threatened customers and workers (by blocking entrances). Starbucks then lost an NLRB challenge, in which the company requested to disallow mail-in union votes that happened due to pandemic conditions. Starbucks followed that by requesting to pause mail-in union votes nationwide while accusing NLRB employees of conspiring with Starbucks organizers to exploit vulnerabilities within the ballot process.
What’s next? A first mini-deal materialized between Starbucks and Workers United when workers (from two Seattle stores that closed) won their bid to be reassigned with the same number of work hours to other area stores. No full-on union contracts exist yet; however, Starbuck is enduring a viral TikTok video (which shows New York workers refusing to work out of protest for an organizer’s firing) that amassed 20 million views.
