Twenty-seven months after the first Starbucks store in the country unionized and just days after twenty-one stores announced they were unionizing at the same time, Starbucks Workers United announced that the company has caved and will work with the eunion on framework that will allow workers at Starbucks stores to unionize, get contracts, and end the constant union-busting. The company has faced sinking profits due in large part to the aggressive campaign from the union.
In just over two years, Workers United has helped over 10,000 baristas at 392 separate stores across the country unionize. Workers United has also conducted successful organizing campaigns at other companies at the same time.
This rate of unionization and success is functionally unparalled in the modern-era. Many of these stores self-organized, with baristas performing most of the organizing work themselves with the support of the union. The most interesting part of this campaign is how successful they have been.
510 total stores have filed to unionize. Some of those elections have not yet happened. The union has won 392 out of that 510 so far, with many of the losses coming down to just one vote in an intense anti-union campaign that cost the company millions of dollars.
Press Release from Starbucks:
“I want to let you know that we have reached an important milestone. We have agreed with Workers United that we will begin discussions on a foundational framework designed to achieve collective bargaining agreements, including a fair process for organizing, and the resolution of some outstanding litigation.
“There is a lot of work ahead, but this is an important, positive step. It is a clear demonstration of our intent to build a constructive relationship with Workers United in the interests of our partners. I want to acknowledge and appreciate the union’s willingness to do the same.
“Our partners are the core of our business, and we are committed to providing everyone who wears the green apron a bridge to a better future.”
Press Release from Starbucks Workers United:
“Workers United and Starbucks share a commitment to developing a productive relationship in the best interests of Starbucks partners. During mediation discussions last week over ongoing brand and IP litigation, a constructive path forward emerged on the broader issues of the future of organizing and collective bargaining at Starbucks.
“To build on that path, Workers United and Starbucks have agreed to begin discussions on a foundational framework to achieve collective bargaining agreements for represented stores and partners, the resolution of litigation between the union and the company, including brand litigation, and a fair process for workers to organize. As a sign of good faith, Starbucks has agreed to provide workers represented by Workers United with credit card tipping and benefits announced by the company in May of 2022. This will, radically, include the back pay that workers are due.
“While there is plenty of work ahead, coming together to develop this framework is a significant step forward and a clear demonstration of a shared commitment to working collaboratively and with mutual respect.”
If you want to patronize union Starbucks stores in the Kansas City-area, the following locations have won their election:
E. 39th and Arrowhead at 18710 East 39th Street South, Independence, MO, USA
Crown Center KC Shops Level 1 at 2450 Grand Boulevard, Kansas City, MO, USA
41st & Main at 4101 Main Street, Kansas City, MO, USA
Overland Park – 75th & I35 at 10201 West 75th Street, Overland Park, KS, US
23rd & Ousdahl at 1731 West 23rd Street, Lawrence, KS, USA
One store in Wichita, KS and one store in Springfield, MO has also unionizeed and one additional store in Wichita has recently filed. At least eight stores in St. Louis have won their union election. Starbucks closed the popular and highly-profitable Country Club Plaza store in Kansas City, MO that was a hot-bed of union organizing.
A result of this campaign is the that the Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), a coalition of several North American labor groups and itself a Starbucks shareholder, has ended a campaign it started in November to elect its own slate of three new directors at the coffee giant’s March 13 shareholders meeting, including a former National Labor Relations Board chair. The organization announced it was withdrawing its nominees following the announcement that Starbucks and the Workers United union had agreed to work together to create a framework for collective bargaining agreements at unionizing Starbucks stores. The SOC recently accused Starbucks of failing to disclose to shareholders $240 million in costs and liabilities for “anti-union activity,” which Starbucks has denied.
Starbucks has or is currently facing at least 741 open or settled unfair labor practice charges across the country currently filed with the NLRB. The company has waged one of the most aggressive union busting campaigns in modern-history—and lost.
The Starbucks of the future will be unionized, with a master contract expanding through new organizing to eventually cover all 9,700 stores. This master contract will have specific contracts for each region and special carveouts for unique situations at specific stores, not unlike the master contract that the Teamsters have with UPS.
If we organize, we will win. Workers deserve all that they create.
Tristin Amezcua-Hogan is the Editor of The Labor Beacon and a member of LIUNA Local 264. Tristin also serves as the Director of Communications for the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO and the Chair of the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance.
Tristin grew up as the son of a UA Local 669 member in Tecumseh, KS and the great-nephew of George C. Amis, longtime leader of the United Rubberworkers (now USW Local 307) in Kansas. Growing up in rural Kansas as the child of teen parents, Tristin quickly came to appreciate the life-changing benefit of a union job.
Tristin and his partner, Rebeca Amezcua-Hogan, are residents of the Westside, Kansas City, MO's historic Mexican neighborhood. They are proud members of Kansas City's New Reform Temple.
