Local Starbucks workers and partners continue to remain optimistic that they are closing in on becoming the first unionized Starbucks coffeehouses in the country.
In a press conference on Wednesday in Buffalo, organizers of Starbucks Workers United provided the latest update on the voting process towards making three local Starbucks stores in Western New York unionized. While the final results will not be known until next week Thursday, Dec. 9, the group remains in high spirits for the vote to pass.
"In spite of everything the corporation has done over the last three months to try and destroy this union campaign, we are still completely confident that come next Thursday, we will have the first unionized Starbucks out of almost 9,000 in the United States," said Michelle Eisen, a barista and an 11-year partner at the Elmwood Ave. location. "A lot of that is due, really, to the community support. The city has really rallied behind us, our communities have rallied behind us, family and friends. The entire country is excited to see this play out, and are rooting us on. It seems that the only people who are not excited about this unionized Starbucks is Starbucks itself."
On top of the three stores looking to unionize with this vote - Elmwood Avenue, Hamburg and Genesee Street - an additional three stores petitioned with the National Labor Relations Board in early November to hold a union election. Those three stores joining are the Bailey and Sheridan location, Walden and Anderson location, and the Depew location.
So if and when the vote does pass for local Starbucks coffeehouses to be unionized, what's next for the staff at these locations? What actions are hopefully going to be taken between the union and the corporation?
"We're hoping that once we do win, Starbucks will turn a corner and will come to the bargaining table," said barista at the Main St. location in Williamsville, Casey Moore on Wednesday. "That's the assumption that we're operating on. We do believe that they'll be the company that they say they are, and they will negotiate with us. That's what we're hoping for."
For Jaz Brisack, a barista at the Elmwood Ave. Starbucks, she is hoping that the union will allow for employees to be able to gain equal ground with Starbucks itself when it comes to decisions with the workers going forward.
"I think we say as a society that we value democracy, but the workplace is one of the few places that we don't actually have democracy in. We're trying to change that," Brisack said on Wednesday. "Right now, everything has been top-down, and that's the way it is. With a union, it won't be top-down anymore. It will be us negotiating on an equal footing and talking to corporate about what makes our life work as the people who are creating this company."
While Brisack is part of the store on Elmwood that is voting on the unionization of their location, Moore is part of the Williamsville group that has not elected to vote for unionization just yet. However, she's hoping that with the progress being made with the other locations to this point, that it will help gain momentum for other stores in the region and nationwide to lead towards unionization.
"I think it will be a really great rallying moment for Starbucks partners around the country to say we can do this as well," Moore said. "Regardless of what the company does at this point, because we will have the first unionized Starbucks store. It's up to Starbucks how they want to respond, and hopefully it will be coming to the negotiation table. I think it will show that this is possible, and it will be a light of hope at the end of this long, union-busting tunnel."
The movement gained by Starbucks Workers United has already gained plenty of national attention. This now includes U.S. Senator Barry Sanders, who met with partners virtually on Tuesday to share his support in their fight to overcome corporate union-busting and bargain for a contract that Starbucks and partners can be proud of.
Another benefit of the unionization, in Brisack's eyes, is the fact that now the lower-level employees of Starbucks will have a voice going forward when it comes to the decision making process, instead of all the calls coming from the top.
"As issues have come up; No one anticipated the pandemic, obviously, but our union friends at Spot [Coffee], because they had a union, were able to negotiate what a safe re-opening would look like. Whereas Starbucks just kind of threw people back into work," Brisack explained. "I think in the future, we hope with our union to be able to actually proactively address things that come up so that our voices are represented and we can look after each other even more effectively.
"Partners, I think, have a lot of priorities that transcend some of the standard things that would go in a contract, which doesn't mean we don't need those, but we also want to challenge Starbucks to do better on sustainability, on equality and diversity, and issues that they say they exemplify, but that we think, as partners, where they could do better at implementing their values."
However, what happens if, for whatever reason, the votes come in next Thursday and it is announced that the unionization did not pass. Are the organizers at Starbucks Workers United preparing for that potential scenario?
Both Brisack and Moore are confident that even if the vote does not pass, that it will not be the end of the movement to unionize local stores.
"I think we know that we're overcoming huge union-busting odds," Brisack said. "We're so confident that we're going to win the first unionized Starbucks, but I think the NLRB [National Labor Rights Board] is still investigating everything that Starbucks has done. We're not voting in a fair election. They've laughed at the fair election principles, and swarmed one of our organizing committee partners when she asked why Howard Schultz why he's not signing them. We know this isn't a fair election, but we're confident that we can still overcome it."
"The Amazon workers didn't necessarily win their first vote, but now there's things going on in New York. This is not stopping, as much as Starbucks would like it to be stopped," Moore said. "Workers and partners around the country, just like us, are saying enough is enough. It's not sustainable, and I think our generation, younger generations in particular, are seeing that unionizing might be the answer to working in the service industry."
So what will make the unionized stores for Starbucks stand out among the rest of the coffeehouses and other businesses in Western New York that are not unionized. Despite being told that unionized businesses have trouble hiring people due to things like initiation dues, Moore believes that this will actually bring more people in the door looking for work.
"I think people are going to flock to unionized stores," Moore said. "Initiation fees [are something you can bargain], and as far as I'm aware, [Starbucks] Workers United doesn't have them, or they are very low. I think as someone who is not voting, that's something that I would look for. Is this store unionized, because that's something that people want. I think it will help with the staffing problems."
