Workers at the Elmwood Avenue location of a Buffalo, New York Starbucks voted 19 to eight in favor of joining the Workers United New York. This union is a branch of the Service Employees International Union. This is the first time in decades that a Starbucks location has voted to unionize in the U.S.
Michelle Eisen, who has worked as a barista at the Elmwood location of the beverage chain, said in a statement that the win was a first step in changing what it meant to be a partner at Starbucks as well as what it meant “to work in the service industry, more broadly.” The statement also noted that with a union, employees of Starbucks had the ability to negotiate contracts and it gave them “a real voice in the workplace.”
Two other locations also voted on the issue of unionization. The Camp Road outlet voted against joining a union with 12 in opposition and eight in favor. One ballot was declared void and two were challenged. The union claimed that several ballots that had been submitted were missing. On Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board did not release the vote tally of a third cafe that had voted.
The restaurant industry is narrowly unionized. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1.2 percent of workers at food and beverage outlets are members of unions. The unionization of private labor in the nation is 6.3 percent.
The management at Starbucks was against the forming of union at its cafes. They tried to persuade staff by sending top executives to talk to employees. Workers at a Bessemer warehouse of Amazon tried to form a union, several months ago but faced a lot of problems and finally voted against unionization. At that point in time, the union said that intimidation tactics had been used at the warehouse.
Starbucks has more than 8,000 company-owned stores in the nation. None of these stores have had unions since the nineteen eighties. Workers from other locations in Buffalo and one store in Arizona have also applied to form unions. A Gallup poll conducted in August showed that 68 percent of Americans now approve of unions.
