Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Exasperated workers from three local Starbucks Coffee locations gathered at the Starbucks Workers United offices Wednesday afternoon to hear the outcome of the anticipated union votes at the stores.
Instead of counting, the votes were impounded until further notice, pending a decision from the National Labor Relations Board on whether Starbucks workers can continue to unionize on a store-by-store basis.
"It's a delay tactic, and this right here is what union-busting looks like in the United States in 2022," said Workers United attorney Ian Hayes. "This is what Starbucks wanted."
Hayes says the region 3 office of the NLRB has already determined the individual Starbucks stores can vote on forming a union and calls Starbucks' argument "nonsense." "They've known that from the beginning, so have we," said Hayes. Starbucks opted to wait until late in the process to file an appeal with the national NLRB office on the matter and the lack of that decision is why the vote count was delayed and ballots impounded.
"It's not a matter of if we'll win, but when we'll win," said Sheridan Bailey Starbucks associate Daniel Rojas. "I believe that every workplace, especially Starbucks stores, should be unionized."
Colin Cochran works at the Walden-Anderson store where associates have been waiting nearly six months to vote on the union effort. "This is infuriating," he said following the virtual session during which the votes were impounded. "We were excited for out votes to be counted today."
The three stores that were hoping to have their votes counted today are the Walden & Anderson, Sheridan & Bailey, and French & Transit locations. Two local Starbucks locations, the Elmwood and Genesee Street stores, successfully voted to unionize in December.
Starbucks workers at 105 stores in 26 states have filed petitions to join the Starbucks Workers United movement.
