PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Employees of 4 Philadelphia Starbucks stores are the first in the city to have voted in favor of forming a union.
“We have to be able to give these workers a voice,” said Pat Eiding, president of the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO.
Eiding says the Starbucks baristas who voted to unionize want better pay, fairer distribution of tips, improved work conditions and benefits.
“We want to be able to get consistent hours, to be able to know that we are properly compensated for understaffing, I want to make sure that new partners are given the room to develop. I want to make sure that, in an industry that is so heavily dependent on gratuities, that we are able to get more than just a few bucks in tips, which is often all we get,” said Amalia Jade Inkeles, who helped to organize the vote.
“At the end of the day, like we are not the peons of this company. We are the company. We are the backbone. We are the bones. We are every single vital organ of it.”
The stores that have voted to unionize are located at 20th and Market streets in Center City; 3400 Civic Center Blvd., inside the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine building; 34th and Walnut streets in West Philly; and 9th and South streets.
“Now, we create our bargaining committees, and we hope that Starbucks actually shows up and negotiates in good faith with us,” Barista Lua Riley said. “They haven’t done it in Buffalo, so we hope they will do it here. But if they don’t, we will have a plan when that day comes.”
City Councilmember-at-Large Helen Gym said unions are good for the city, not just the workers.
“It helps to have a strong labor force. It helps to have one in which, if a company grows, its workers grow, profit, along with the company,” she said.
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Including the four locations in Philadelphia, 92 Starbucks stores in 23 states have successfully unionized in the last six months.
A union vote for the Starbucks at 12th and Walnut streets is scheduled for next month.