The Starbucks Workers United saga has left many lessons in its ongoing wake. These include workers discovering how a union claiming as many as 600 election “wins” still can’t close the deal on a contract framework. That hasn’t deterred the SWU from unionizing baristas at five more Starbucks cafes this month. The coffeehouse fever also keeps spreading, with Anodyne Coffee workers unanimously voting to join the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Union last week.
More importantly, for our purposes today, the SWU mess has also reinforced how no industry is safe from unions since baristas were an organizing outlier a few years ago. This roundup further points toward multiple former outliers that are now part of the Big Labor agenda:
- Board-game cafes are a relatively new union “get,” with a first contract materializing this month between Hex & Co. and Tabletop Workers United. That cafe is part of a trio of Workers United victories in NYC, including The Brooklyn Strategist and The Uncommons.
- Cannabis growers and dispensaries are still fertile ground, with unions racking up recent wins. These include UFCW’s victories at New Jersey’s Fresh Eatontown LLC and Illinois’ Mystic Greenz dispensaries. The Teamsters are also bragging about a new contract deal for Garden Society, a maker of “craft” edibles in California.
As we’ve discussed previously, this industry also carries unique concerns for employers. A new twist has arrived in Oregon, where a federal judge blocked the labor neutrality law voters passed last November. As a result, this state’s cannabis industry employers no longer have to enter into labor peace agreements to be licensed.
The art world has been aggressively targeted recently. Non-profit center The Kitchen has unionized under a UAW offshoot union. D.C.’s Kennedy Center workers are gearing up for a union vote after layoffs began in March. Around 100 Toledo Art Museum workers also announced their intent to unionize with the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees. The same goes for 70 workers at the Chicago History Museum and about 300 workers at two Los Angeles art institutions, the La Brea Tar Pits and the Natural History Museum.
The next few entries involve industries that are not “new” as union targets, but for sheer numbers’ sake, these organizing campaigns are worth mentioning:
- The UFCW’s grip on Hormel Foods plants continued this month, with 600+ Bacon processing workers voting to unionize at the Dold Foods plant in Wichita, KS. This union win adds to UFCW’s total claimed representation of 8,000 Hormel workers throughout the United States, including 4,000+ workers in Austin, MN.
- College faculty members are still hopping on the UAW bandwagon. About 1,200 adjunct instructors at NYC’s School of Visual Arts voted to form SVA Faculty United–UAW after a two-year organizing campaign. Additionally, 1,600 postdoctoral researchers and fellows at Johns Hopkins University have joined the UAW.
As always, these organizing roundups serve as a reminder that unions are perpetually looking to push their feet into workplaces’ doors. No industry should rest easy on this subject, which makes it all the more important for employers to connect with their workers and listen to any concerns before unions offer to do so.
