‘This is a national movement’: union drives surge at US Starbucks stores
A union organizing drive among workers at corporate run Starbucks stores, the largest coffeehouse chain in the world, has surged in recent weeks throughout the US, organizers and workers say.
The development comes in the wake of union election victories at two of three stores in the Buffalo, New York, area that held union votes with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in December.
It also comes amid allegations that seven Starbucks workers in Memphis were fired in retaliation for union organizing.
More than 70 stores in at least 20 US states have now filed for union elections since those wins, representing more than 1,300 workers at Starbucks, which previously had no union representation among its corporate-run locations in the US.
“We were inspired by the partners in Buffalo that managed to do something many of us have dreamed of for a long time. It’s something we didn’t think was possible, but they really pushed through and showed the rest of us across the nation that we could use our voices and actually unionize,” said Hannah McCown, a Starbucks barista in Overland, Kansas, whose store has recently filed to hold a union election.
McCown said their district manager had held aggressive conversations with workers since the organizing campaign went public and that the store was hiring new employees rather than fix the scheduling issues and short staffing that workers have been experiencing.
“We are just looking to have our voices heard at a company that we really put everything into,” added McCown. “We are the backbone of this company and while we do believe this is a great company to work for, we do believe things could be done better.”
Maddie Levans, a barista for over four years at one of the first Starbucks stores in
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