Ithaca Starbucks workers vote to unionize
By Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo |
Starbucks workers in Ithaca celebrate after the vote count.
(Photo courtesy of Casey Moore)
BINGHAMTON, NY (WSKG) — Starbucks workers in Ithaca voted to unionize last week. They’re the latest in a wave of unionization efforts at Starbucks stores across the country.
All three of Ithaca’s Starbucks locations are now part of the Starbucks Workers United union.
“Today, we unionize a store that is not even four months old. That really shows that the unions are in the future for Starbucks. And I hope that Starbucks will get behind that,” said Hope Liepe, a barista at a location on South Meadow Street in Ithaca.
The employees said Starbucks management has used union busting tactics, such as denying time-off requests and writing up workers.
“It’s been a lot of hours getting cut, a lot of support managers coming in and just kind of breathing down your neck during your shifts,” Rebekkah MacLean, who works at a Starbucks on College Avenue.
The Ithaca Commons location is one of three Starbucks stores now part of the Starbucks workers union. (Megan Zerez/WSKG)
A spokesperson from Starbucks called claims of union-busting “categorically false.”
Starbucks employees in Buffalo became the first in the country to unionize in December. Since then, unionization efforts have cropped up at Starbucks locations nationwide. On Thursday, locations in Rochester and Buffalo also voted to unionize.
The employees said they will negotiate for better hours and health care benefits. Evan Sunshine is one of the organizers at the Starbucks on College Avenue in Ithaca. He said the workers plan to push for a tip minimum as well.
“A lot of stores in Ithaca don’t get a lot of tips. I know on College Avenue, I only get $1 in tips per week,” Sunshine said.
Nearly all of the workers at the Ithaca stores were in favor of unionizing, with only three votes against the measure.
The spokesperson for Starbucks said the company respects its workers efforts, but is against the stores unionizing.
BINGHAMTON, NY (WSKG) — Starbucks workers in Ithaca voted to unionize last week. They’re the latest in a wave of unionization efforts at Starbucks stores across the country.
All three of Ithaca’s Starbucks locations are now part of the Starbucks Workers United union.
“Today, we unionize a store that is not even four months old. That really shows that the unions are in the future for Starbucks. And I hope that Starbucks will get behind that,” said Hope Liepe, a barista at a location on South Meadow Street in Ithaca.
The employees said Starbucks management has used union busting tactics, such as denying time-off requests and writing up workers.
“It’s been a lot of hours getting cut, a lot of support managers coming in and just kind of breathing down your neck during your shifts,” Rebekkah MacLean, who works at a Starbucks on College Avenue.
The Ithaca Commons location is one of three Starbucks stores now part of the Starbucks workers union. (Megan Zerez/WSKG)
A spokesperson from Starbucks called claims of union-busting “categorically false.”
Starbucks employees in Buffalo became the first in the country to unionize in December. Since then, unionization efforts have cropped up at Starbucks locations nationwide. On Thursday, locations in Rochester and Buffalo also voted to unionize.
The employees said they will negotiate for better hours and health care benefits. Evan Sunshine is one of the organizers at the Starbucks on College Avenue in Ithaca. He said the workers plan to push for a tip minimum as well.
“A lot of stores in Ithaca don’t get a lot of tips. I know on College Avenue, I only get $1 in tips per week,” Sunshine said.
Nearly all of the workers at the Ithaca stores were in favor of unionizing, with only three votes against the measure.
The spokesperson for Starbucks said the company respects its workers efforts, but is against the stores unionizing.
Four St. Louis Starbucks locations have filed paperwork to unionize.
Stores in Ladue, Bridgeton, and St. Louis City appealed to the National Labor Relations Board to begin union elections. The stores join nearly 200 other Starbucks locations across the country in filing for unionization. According to workers at the Bridgeton location, the workers want higher pay, benefits, and a voice in store decision-making. (KMOV4)
On Friday, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz met with union-minded workers in the city.
When a barista asked the CEO about the company's growing union movement, he responded with, "if you hate Starbucks so much, why don't you go somewhere else?" At this time, this barista is "leading the unionization effort at the Second and Covina store in Long Beach." (Perfect Union)
Starbucks union campaign pushes on, with at least 16 stores now organized.
Workers at six more stores in upstate New York have voted to unionize.
Pro-union pins were available during a watch party for a Starbucks union election in Buffalo in December.
Noam Scheiber is a Chicago-based reporter who covers workers and the workplace. He spent nearly 15 years at The New Republic magazine, where he covered economic policy and three presidential campaigns. He is the author of “The Escape Artists.” @noamscheiber
Starbucks Just Fired a Union Organizer for Allegedly Breaking a Sink
Starbucks fired the 20-year-old barista and organizer just days before employees begin voting on whether to unionize.
By Paul Blest
![]()
A PRO-UNION POSTER IS SEEN ON A LAMP POLE OUTSIDE A STARBUCKS LOCATION IN SEATTLE'S SEATTLE. (PHOTO: TOBY SCOTT/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Starbucks fired a barista and organizing committee member at a store in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Saturday after blaming her for purposely breaking a sink—just days before employees at the store begin voting on whether to unionize.
Sharon Gilman, 20, a student at nearby North Carolina State University, had worked at Starbucks since May 2020 and also trained other baristas at the store. Gilman told VICE News Sunday that she didn’t purposely break the three-compartment sink while she was washing dishes, and that she believes she was fired for being a pro-union employee who’d spoken to the press.
“My name was on the letter, my name was on the press release when we went public,” Gilman told VICE News. “I think this is Starbucks' way of making a statement of what could potentially happen if we were to vote yes for the union.”
The Raleigh store is one of more than 200 that have filed for a National Labor Relations Board election since the first store, in Buffalo, voted to unionize in December, according to a tracker compiled by labor outlet More Perfect Union. Workers at 15 of 16 stores where results have been counted since have voted for a union, including six in New York last week.
Workers at the Raleigh store will begin their vote on union representation later this week.
The incident in question happened on Feb. 13, just one day before Gilman and six other coworkers published an open letter to then-Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson stating their intent to form a union at the Starbucks store. That night, Gilman was washing dishes in the back of the house and was cleaning the floor drain using the spray head of the sink when the spray head snapped
“The sink just kind of fell off the wall onto me,” Gilman said. “I wasn't injured, but it did fall off and I was holding it up and there was water spraying.”
“I heard her scream when it happened, and could see how scared she was when the sink collapsed on her,” Elsa Englebrecht, another Starbucks worker and leader in the union campaign, said in a statement provided Sunday by the union.
Gilman said she and her co-workers took photos and video of the broken sink, which was later fixed. But more than a month later, on March 26, Gilman arrived at work to find her district manager wanting to talk to her, which she assumed was about the union.
The district manager instead told her she needed to write a statement about the sink, said a repairman had determined the sink couldn’t have been broken by accident, and that the store had video of when the sink broke. In an email, Starbucks spokesperson Reggie Borges told VICE News that “video footage confirmed [Gilman] forcefully pulled on the hose until it snapped.”
On Saturday, two weeks after she found out she was under investigation, Gilman was fired.
Gilman told VICE News that she didn’t break the sink on purpose. “Nothing memorable happened [that night]. I was not frustrated. I was not angry,” Gilman recalled of that night. She also said that she doesn’t believe she has the physical strength to break the sink in the manner she was accused of doing.
“I was in disbelief. I don’t work out. I’m not a freaking macho man,” Gilman told VICE News. “As a 20-year-old female, I didn't know that I had the strength to pull, to break a metal sink clear off the wall.”
Gilman did not admit to wrongdoing in the statement she wrote to her manager about the sink, but she said she couldn’t argue with the company’s interpretation of the video. Both the company and Gilman also confirmed that she originally said she was cleaning the back of the sink and then later said she was cleaning the floor drain; Gilman said she initially didn’t remember everything about the situation at the time she was asked.
“I've never been fired from a job before,” Gilman, who said she’d never been written up in the nearly two years she worked at the store, told VICE News. “I think I had a little bit of a panic attack when it happened. I didn't know what to do.”
Both Gilman and the company also said she was offered a chance to watch the video but declined.
“I suppose I just didn’t see the point in arguing back to them, because at the end of the day they’re corporate and I’m just a barista. They’ll see what they want to see,” Gilman said. “There are partners at my store that have broken company policies, but their names weren’t on the letter or in the press release, so they’re safe.”
“I’m 20 years old, a junior in college, overwhelmed with everything, and this just sprung on me a month and a half after the whole thing happened,” Gilman said. “I didn’t see the point in arguing with them because I’m replaceable. It’s sad but true.”
“At the end of the day, they can just hire a new person and go on with their lives,” she added.
Workers at this particular Starbucks store have complained of malfunctioning equipment in the past. In the letter sent to Johnson, workers raised a particular incident in December—which some employees at the store now refer to as “fume-a-geddon”—in which the plastic encasement of a store oven melted and the store’s lobby was filled with fumes and smoke.
“This incident led to one of our best shift supervisors leaving the company because she no longer felt supported,” the partners wrote in the February letter. “We will no longer tolerate an unsafe work environment.”
Alyssa Watkins, a shift supervisor and lead organizer at the store, told VICE News that after the ovens began to fail, she suffered from lightheadedness and a migraine that lasted for more than two days. Watkins filed a complaint with the North Carolina Department of Labor’s OSHA division on Dec. 6, but in February, the agency notified her that it closed the complaint after the store replaced the ovens.
Though this particular Raleigh store opened only two years ago, Gilman said the store often has trouble with espresso machines and card readers not working. “It’s not an abnormality for something like this to happen at our store,” she said.
Gilman is not the first organizer at a Starbucks store to be fired. Starbucks Workers United, the union representing Starbucks workers, told VICE News last week—before Gilman was fired—that it believes at least 16 Starbucks workers have been fired in retaliation for their union activity
“Our ballots are supposed to be mailed at the start of this week, and the incident they're firing her for happened two months ago,” Watkins said in a statement provided by the union. “It's very clear this is an effort to stop our unionization.”
Starbucks has repeatedly insisted it has not retaliated against organizers. “We have in no way, shape, or form retaliated against a partner because of their interest in unions or unionization efforts,” Borges told VICE News Friday. “There's been no situation where that action was taken strictly because that partner has an interest in unionization or has unionization ties."
But in a few similar cases the NLRB has heard so far, they’ve disagreed. In March, the agency issued a complaint against Starbucks after it fired Phoenix barista Alyssa Sanchez and suspended shift supervisor Laila Dalton, finding that the company retaliated against them. Dalton was fired April 4, the same day interim CEO Howard Schultz held a town hall with employees where he said unions were “assaulting” American companies like Starbucks.
In February, the company fired seven pro-union Memphis workers after they gave a local news crew an interview inside their store. Bloomberg News reported Friday that the NLRB found the firings were illegal and will file a complaint against the company unless it settles with the workers, which the NLRB confirmed in an email to VICE News.
Starbucks Workers United said in a release that they will file a charge with the NLRB against Starbucks over Gilman’s firing, and that a protest at the store is set for Monday morning.
“In terminating Sharon, Starbucks continues to treat us inhumanely, and displays a callous disregard for the right of Starbucks partners to unionize,” the union said in a Sunday press release.
Follow Paul Blest on Twitter.
It's Organized Starbucks Workers vs. Oligarchs in the City of Buffalo
Buffalo's baristas give us hope. Buffalo's pols, meanwhile, are giving oligarchy our hard-earned tax dollars.
Starbucks employees celebrate after voting to unionize in Buffalo, New York on December 9, 2021. (Photo: Eleonore Sens/AFP via Getty Images)
SAM PIZZIGATI
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
SAM PIZZIGATI
Sam Pizzigati, veteran labor journalist and Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow, edits Inequality.org. His recent books include: "The Case for a Maximum Wage" (2018) and "The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class, 1900-1970"(2012).
BY FELIX BEHR/APRIL 11, 2022 9:41 AM EDT
In recent weeks, multiple stories have come out about people who worked at Starbucks specifically for their IVF benefits. At the end of February, Autumn Lucy shared with Business Insider how the only way she could afford in vitro fertilization (IVF) was by picking up a part time job at Starbucks because most insurance companies do not cover IVF. True, she made no money from working, but she got the benefits package that allowed her to finally become a parent.
A similar story was shared with NBC news in late March. A couple couldn't have children without IVF and the only company in their area that offered benefits that covered this was Starbucks. So, Leah Russell applied, was hired, and learned that the benefits were structured in such a way that her actual paycheck could not cover the deductible.
Fortunately, her partner's salary could keep them afloat.
The point, though, is that even if one works full time, the amount one actually makes means that you often can't pay for the benefits you receive. The issue extends beyond IVF as well. Back in May, when Business Insider was covering how Starbucks was suffering the labor shortage, workers were already saying that even though they appreciated the benefits, that wasn't what they wanted: "Benefits do not make up for lackluster pay; free Spotify doesn't pay rent."
This is not to say that workers are demonizing the benefits Starbucks offers. "From tuition assistance to health care coverage," the Twitter account for Starbucks Workers United wrote back in August, "we appreciate the benefits Starbucks offers to partners. This doesn't mean things couldn't be better." Again, in the piece about staffing, another worker admitted "Our benefits are amazing, however in lieu of some of the frivolous ones such as Headspace, a meditation app, we would prefer higher wages and better staffing."
However, it is cheaper for Starbucks to offer free Spotify or Headspace because the subscription to these apps is less than what they'd have to pay in higher wages. It's analogous to the perk wars Corey Pein covered in Silicon Valley in which businesses will offer free steak suppers to those who worked late because the $20 spent on steak results in $200 made from their work. It is perhaps for this reason that even though Howard Schulz repeatedly states that there is no need for a representative between the workers and corporate, there has been a pattern of firing union agitators who if successful would push for more material benefits that a free subscription to Spotify, per Vice.
Workers at six more stores in upstate New York have voted to unionize.
Pro-union pins were available during a watch party for a Starbucks union election in Buffalo in December.
Credit...Joshua Bessex/Associated Press
By Noam Scheiber
April 8, 2022
Starbucks workers have added to the momentum of a union campaign that went public in late August and has upended decades of union-free labor at the company’s corporate-owned stores.
On Thursday and Friday, workers at six stores in upstate New York voted to unionize, according to the National Labor Relations Board, bringing the total number of company-owned stores where workers have backed a union to 16. The union, Workers United, was also leading by a wide margin at a store in Kansas whose votes were tallied Friday, but the number of challenged ballots leaves the outcome officially in doubt until their status can be resolved.
The union has lost only a single election so far, but it is formally challenging the outcome.
Since the union secured its first two victories in elections that concluded in December, workers at more than 175 other stores across at least 25 states have filed for union elections, out of roughly 9,000 corporate-owned stores in the United States. The labor board will count ballots in at least three more stores next week.
The organizing success at Starbucks appears to reflect a growing interest among workers in unionizing, including the efforts at Amazon, where workers last week voted to unionize a Staten Island warehouse by a significant margin.
On Wednesday, the general counsel of the labor board, Jennifer Abruzzo, announced that union election filings were up more than 50 percent during the previous six months versus the same period one year earlier. Ms. Abruzzo expressed concern that funding and staff shortages were making it difficult for the agency to keep up with the activity, saying in a statement that the board “needs a significant increase of funds to fully effectuate the mission of the agency.”
Daily business updates The latest coverage of business, markets and the economy, sent by email each weekday. Get it sent to your inbox.
Starbucks has sought to persuade workers not to unionize by holding anti-union meetings with workers and conversations between managers and individual employees, but some employees say the meetings have only galvanized their support for organizing.
In some cases, Starbucks has also sent a number of senior officials to stores from out of town, a move the company says is intended to address operational issues like staffing and training but which some union supporters have said they find intimidating.
The union has accused Starbucks of seeking to cut back hours nationally as a way to encourage longtime employees to leave the company and replace them with workers who are more skeptical about unionizing. And the union argues that Starbucks has retaliated against workers for supporting the union by disciplining or firing them. Last month, the labor board issued a formal complaint against Starbucks for retaliating against two Arizona employees, a step it takes after finding merit in accusations against employers or unions.
The company has denied that it has cut hours to prompt employees to leave, saying it schedules workers in response to customer demand, and it has rejected accusations of anti-union activity.
As the union campaign accelerated in March, the company announced that Kevin Johnson, who had served as chief executive since 2017, would be replaced on an interim basis by Howard Schultz, who had led the company twice before and remained one of its largest investors.
Some investors who had warned Mr. Johnson that the company’s anti-union tactics could damage its reputation expressed optimism that the leadership change might bring about a shift in Starbucks’s posture toward the union. But the company soon announced that it would not agree to stay neutral in union elections, as the union has requested, dampening those hopes.
On Monday, the same day that Mr. Schultz returned as chief executive, the company fired Laila Dalton, one of the two Arizona workers the N.L.R.B. had accused Starbucks of retaliating against in March. The company said that Ms. Dalton had violated company rules by recording co-workers’ conversations without their permission.
“A partner’s interest in a union does not exempt them from the standards we have always held,” Reggie Borges, a company spokesman, said in a statement, using the company’s term for an employee.
By Noam Scheiber
April 8, 2022
Starbucks workers have added to the momentum of a union campaign that went public in late August and has upended decades of union-free labor at the company’s corporate-owned stores.
On Thursday and Friday, workers at six stores in upstate New York voted to unionize, according to the National Labor Relations Board, bringing the total number of company-owned stores where workers have backed a union to 16. The union, Workers United, was also leading by a wide margin at a store in Kansas whose votes were tallied Friday, but the number of challenged ballots leaves the outcome officially in doubt until their status can be resolved.
The union has lost only a single election so far, but it is formally challenging the outcome.
Since the union secured its first two victories in elections that concluded in December, workers at more than 175 other stores across at least 25 states have filed for union elections, out of roughly 9,000 corporate-owned stores in the United States. The labor board will count ballots in at least three more stores next week.
The organizing success at Starbucks appears to reflect a growing interest among workers in unionizing, including the efforts at Amazon, where workers last week voted to unionize a Staten Island warehouse by a significant margin.
On Wednesday, the general counsel of the labor board, Jennifer Abruzzo, announced that union election filings were up more than 50 percent during the previous six months versus the same period one year earlier. Ms. Abruzzo expressed concern that funding and staff shortages were making it difficult for the agency to keep up with the activity, saying in a statement that the board “needs a significant increase of funds to fully effectuate the mission of the agency.”
Daily business updates The latest coverage of business, markets and the economy, sent by email each weekday. Get it sent to your inbox.
Starbucks has sought to persuade workers not to unionize by holding anti-union meetings with workers and conversations between managers and individual employees, but some employees say the meetings have only galvanized their support for organizing.
In some cases, Starbucks has also sent a number of senior officials to stores from out of town, a move the company says is intended to address operational issues like staffing and training but which some union supporters have said they find intimidating.
The union has accused Starbucks of seeking to cut back hours nationally as a way to encourage longtime employees to leave the company and replace them with workers who are more skeptical about unionizing. And the union argues that Starbucks has retaliated against workers for supporting the union by disciplining or firing them. Last month, the labor board issued a formal complaint against Starbucks for retaliating against two Arizona employees, a step it takes after finding merit in accusations against employers or unions.
The company has denied that it has cut hours to prompt employees to leave, saying it schedules workers in response to customer demand, and it has rejected accusations of anti-union activity.
As the union campaign accelerated in March, the company announced that Kevin Johnson, who had served as chief executive since 2017, would be replaced on an interim basis by Howard Schultz, who had led the company twice before and remained one of its largest investors.
Some investors who had warned Mr. Johnson that the company’s anti-union tactics could damage its reputation expressed optimism that the leadership change might bring about a shift in Starbucks’s posture toward the union. But the company soon announced that it would not agree to stay neutral in union elections, as the union has requested, dampening those hopes.
On Monday, the same day that Mr. Schultz returned as chief executive, the company fired Laila Dalton, one of the two Arizona workers the N.L.R.B. had accused Starbucks of retaliating against in March. The company said that Ms. Dalton had violated company rules by recording co-workers’ conversations without their permission.
“A partner’s interest in a union does not exempt them from the standards we have always held,” Reggie Borges, a company spokesman, said in a statement, using the company’s term for an employee.
Starbucks Union Drives
Noam Scheiber is a Chicago-based reporter who covers workers and the workplace. He spent nearly 15 years at The New Republic magazine, where he covered economic policy and three presidential campaigns. He is the author of “The Escape Artists.” @noamscheiber
Starbucks Just Fired a Union Organizer for Allegedly Breaking a Sink
Starbucks fired the 20-year-old barista and organizer just days before employees begin voting on whether to unionize.
By Paul Blest
A PRO-UNION POSTER IS SEEN ON A LAMP POLE OUTSIDE A STARBUCKS LOCATION IN SEATTLE'S SEATTLE. (PHOTO: TOBY SCOTT/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Starbucks fired a barista and organizing committee member at a store in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Saturday after blaming her for purposely breaking a sink—just days before employees at the store begin voting on whether to unionize.
Sharon Gilman, 20, a student at nearby North Carolina State University, had worked at Starbucks since May 2020 and also trained other baristas at the store. Gilman told VICE News Sunday that she didn’t purposely break the three-compartment sink while she was washing dishes, and that she believes she was fired for being a pro-union employee who’d spoken to the press.
“My name was on the letter, my name was on the press release when we went public,” Gilman told VICE News. “I think this is Starbucks' way of making a statement of what could potentially happen if we were to vote yes for the union.”
The Raleigh store is one of more than 200 that have filed for a National Labor Relations Board election since the first store, in Buffalo, voted to unionize in December, according to a tracker compiled by labor outlet More Perfect Union. Workers at 15 of 16 stores where results have been counted since have voted for a union, including six in New York last week.
Workers at the Raleigh store will begin their vote on union representation later this week.
The incident in question happened on Feb. 13, just one day before Gilman and six other coworkers published an open letter to then-Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson stating their intent to form a union at the Starbucks store. That night, Gilman was washing dishes in the back of the house and was cleaning the floor drain using the spray head of the sink when the spray head snapped
“The sink just kind of fell off the wall onto me,” Gilman said. “I wasn't injured, but it did fall off and I was holding it up and there was water spraying.”
“I heard her scream when it happened, and could see how scared she was when the sink collapsed on her,” Elsa Englebrecht, another Starbucks worker and leader in the union campaign, said in a statement provided Sunday by the union.
Gilman said she and her co-workers took photos and video of the broken sink, which was later fixed. But more than a month later, on March 26, Gilman arrived at work to find her district manager wanting to talk to her, which she assumed was about the union.
The district manager instead told her she needed to write a statement about the sink, said a repairman had determined the sink couldn’t have been broken by accident, and that the store had video of when the sink broke. In an email, Starbucks spokesperson Reggie Borges told VICE News that “video footage confirmed [Gilman] forcefully pulled on the hose until it snapped.”
On Saturday, two weeks after she found out she was under investigation, Gilman was fired.
Gilman told VICE News that she didn’t break the sink on purpose. “Nothing memorable happened [that night]. I was not frustrated. I was not angry,” Gilman recalled of that night. She also said that she doesn’t believe she has the physical strength to break the sink in the manner she was accused of doing.
“I was in disbelief. I don’t work out. I’m not a freaking macho man,” Gilman told VICE News. “As a 20-year-old female, I didn't know that I had the strength to pull, to break a metal sink clear off the wall.”
Gilman did not admit to wrongdoing in the statement she wrote to her manager about the sink, but she said she couldn’t argue with the company’s interpretation of the video. Both the company and Gilman also confirmed that she originally said she was cleaning the back of the sink and then later said she was cleaning the floor drain; Gilman said she initially didn’t remember everything about the situation at the time she was asked.
“I've never been fired from a job before,” Gilman, who said she’d never been written up in the nearly two years she worked at the store, told VICE News. “I think I had a little bit of a panic attack when it happened. I didn't know what to do.”
Both Gilman and the company also said she was offered a chance to watch the video but declined.
“I suppose I just didn’t see the point in arguing back to them, because at the end of the day they’re corporate and I’m just a barista. They’ll see what they want to see,” Gilman said. “There are partners at my store that have broken company policies, but their names weren’t on the letter or in the press release, so they’re safe.”
“I’m 20 years old, a junior in college, overwhelmed with everything, and this just sprung on me a month and a half after the whole thing happened,” Gilman said. “I didn’t see the point in arguing with them because I’m replaceable. It’s sad but true.”
“At the end of the day, they can just hire a new person and go on with their lives,” she added.
Workers at this particular Starbucks store have complained of malfunctioning equipment in the past. In the letter sent to Johnson, workers raised a particular incident in December—which some employees at the store now refer to as “fume-a-geddon”—in which the plastic encasement of a store oven melted and the store’s lobby was filled with fumes and smoke.
“This incident led to one of our best shift supervisors leaving the company because she no longer felt supported,” the partners wrote in the February letter. “We will no longer tolerate an unsafe work environment.”
Alyssa Watkins, a shift supervisor and lead organizer at the store, told VICE News that after the ovens began to fail, she suffered from lightheadedness and a migraine that lasted for more than two days. Watkins filed a complaint with the North Carolina Department of Labor’s OSHA division on Dec. 6, but in February, the agency notified her that it closed the complaint after the store replaced the ovens.
Though this particular Raleigh store opened only two years ago, Gilman said the store often has trouble with espresso machines and card readers not working. “It’s not an abnormality for something like this to happen at our store,” she said.
Gilman is not the first organizer at a Starbucks store to be fired. Starbucks Workers United, the union representing Starbucks workers, told VICE News last week—before Gilman was fired—that it believes at least 16 Starbucks workers have been fired in retaliation for their union activity
“Our ballots are supposed to be mailed at the start of this week, and the incident they're firing her for happened two months ago,” Watkins said in a statement provided by the union. “It's very clear this is an effort to stop our unionization.”
Starbucks has repeatedly insisted it has not retaliated against organizers. “We have in no way, shape, or form retaliated against a partner because of their interest in unions or unionization efforts,” Borges told VICE News Friday. “There's been no situation where that action was taken strictly because that partner has an interest in unionization or has unionization ties."
But in a few similar cases the NLRB has heard so far, they’ve disagreed. In March, the agency issued a complaint against Starbucks after it fired Phoenix barista Alyssa Sanchez and suspended shift supervisor Laila Dalton, finding that the company retaliated against them. Dalton was fired April 4, the same day interim CEO Howard Schultz held a town hall with employees where he said unions were “assaulting” American companies like Starbucks.
In February, the company fired seven pro-union Memphis workers after they gave a local news crew an interview inside their store. Bloomberg News reported Friday that the NLRB found the firings were illegal and will file a complaint against the company unless it settles with the workers, which the NLRB confirmed in an email to VICE News.
Starbucks Workers United said in a release that they will file a charge with the NLRB against Starbucks over Gilman’s firing, and that a protest at the store is set for Monday morning.
“In terminating Sharon, Starbucks continues to treat us inhumanely, and displays a callous disregard for the right of Starbucks partners to unionize,” the union said in a Sunday press release.
Follow Paul Blest on Twitter.
Labor Officials Find Starbucks Illegally Fired 7 Union Organizers in Memphis
BY Sharon Zhang,
A pro-union poster is seen on a lamp pole outside Starbucks' Broadway and Denny location in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood on March 23, 2022.
TOBY SCOTT / SOPA IMAGES / LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES
BY Sharon Zhang,
PUBLISHED April 11, 2022
Labor board prosecutors have determined that Starbucks illegally fired seven union organizers who formerly worked in a unionizing store in Memphis, Tennessee, backing up the union’s claims that the terminations were clearly unlawful.
According to Bloomberg, the labor board is planning to issue a formal charge against the company for firing the workers unless the company offers a settlement. The workers — dubbed the “Memphis Seven” by the union — represented nearly the entire organizing committee at the store. Starbucks terminated them in February, alleging that they had violated a number of company policies, including the dress code and rules against entering the back room while off the clock.
At the time, Starbucks Workers United said that the firings were Starbucks’s “most blatant act of union-busting yet.” The company cited “policies that have never been enforced” to fire the workers, the union said, claiming in a complaint filed after the terminations that the company was illegally retaliating against the workers for organizing.
“I’m hoping Howard Schultz is a smart man and he settles, but from the union-busting tactics that have continued, I don’t think he’s going to,” Nikki Taylor, one of the fired workers, told Bloomberg. “We’re going to win either way.”
It is a violation of federal labor laws for employers to take actions to retaliate against pro-union workers, including termination, surveillance, or other forms of punishment. The consequence for illegally terminating a worker, which is incredibly common in union-busting campaigns, is usually very light — typically, the company simply has to rehire the worker and compensate them for lost pay, which is just the normal cost of operation for the employer.
Even after the labor board finds that an employer illegally retaliated against a worker, such cases can take months or years to litigate. Since fired workers would likely be ineligible to vote in upcoming union elections, firing pro-union workers often proves to be an efficient way for companies to union bust.
The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is hoping to speed up the litigation process in order to bring more immediate relief to workers who have been on the receiving end of illegal retaliation, Bloomberg reported.
Meanwhile, the company has been escalating its anti-union campaign, firing numerous workers since the first clean sweep of the Memphis organizers. Over the weekend, the company fired Sharon Gilman, a pro-union worker at a store in Raleigh, North Carolina, and a student at North Carolina State University.
In February, a sink fell on Gilman while she was washing dishes, startling her. The company, which has lied about its reasons for terminating pro-union workers before, claimed that Gilman purposefully broke the sink — but Gilman and the union believe that she was fired for her support of the union.
As Howard Schultz retakes the helm at the company, Starbucks’s union-busting campaign may escalate even further. Schultz has been openly anti-union in recent events, and last week said in a town hall that companies like Starbucks are “being assaulted in many ways by the threat of unionization.”
In a recent Q&A with workers in Long Beach, California, Schultz snapped at a pro-union worker. When union organizer Madison Hall questioned Schultz’s claims that he isn’t anti-union, Schultz said, “If you hate Starbucks so much, why don’t you go somewhere else?”
The union has been incredibly successful so far, despite fierce opposition from the company. On Friday, Starbucks Workers United won union elections at all three stores in Ithaca, New York, making Ithaca the first town in which all Starbucks locations are unionized. Sixteen stores have now successfully unionized, and the union recently hit a milestone of 200 union filings across the country.
Labor board prosecutors have determined that Starbucks illegally fired seven union organizers who formerly worked in a unionizing store in Memphis, Tennessee, backing up the union’s claims that the terminations were clearly unlawful.
According to Bloomberg, the labor board is planning to issue a formal charge against the company for firing the workers unless the company offers a settlement. The workers — dubbed the “Memphis Seven” by the union — represented nearly the entire organizing committee at the store. Starbucks terminated them in February, alleging that they had violated a number of company policies, including the dress code and rules against entering the back room while off the clock.
At the time, Starbucks Workers United said that the firings were Starbucks’s “most blatant act of union-busting yet.” The company cited “policies that have never been enforced” to fire the workers, the union said, claiming in a complaint filed after the terminations that the company was illegally retaliating against the workers for organizing.
“I’m hoping Howard Schultz is a smart man and he settles, but from the union-busting tactics that have continued, I don’t think he’s going to,” Nikki Taylor, one of the fired workers, told Bloomberg. “We’re going to win either way.”
It is a violation of federal labor laws for employers to take actions to retaliate against pro-union workers, including termination, surveillance, or other forms of punishment. The consequence for illegally terminating a worker, which is incredibly common in union-busting campaigns, is usually very light — typically, the company simply has to rehire the worker and compensate them for lost pay, which is just the normal cost of operation for the employer.
Even after the labor board finds that an employer illegally retaliated against a worker, such cases can take months or years to litigate. Since fired workers would likely be ineligible to vote in upcoming union elections, firing pro-union workers often proves to be an efficient way for companies to union bust.
The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is hoping to speed up the litigation process in order to bring more immediate relief to workers who have been on the receiving end of illegal retaliation, Bloomberg reported.
Meanwhile, the company has been escalating its anti-union campaign, firing numerous workers since the first clean sweep of the Memphis organizers. Over the weekend, the company fired Sharon Gilman, a pro-union worker at a store in Raleigh, North Carolina, and a student at North Carolina State University.
In February, a sink fell on Gilman while she was washing dishes, startling her. The company, which has lied about its reasons for terminating pro-union workers before, claimed that Gilman purposefully broke the sink — but Gilman and the union believe that she was fired for her support of the union.
As Howard Schultz retakes the helm at the company, Starbucks’s union-busting campaign may escalate even further. Schultz has been openly anti-union in recent events, and last week said in a town hall that companies like Starbucks are “being assaulted in many ways by the threat of unionization.”
In a recent Q&A with workers in Long Beach, California, Schultz snapped at a pro-union worker. When union organizer Madison Hall questioned Schultz’s claims that he isn’t anti-union, Schultz said, “If you hate Starbucks so much, why don’t you go somewhere else?”
The union has been incredibly successful so far, despite fierce opposition from the company. On Friday, Starbucks Workers United won union elections at all three stores in Ithaca, New York, making Ithaca the first town in which all Starbucks locations are unionized. Sixteen stores have now successfully unionized, and the union recently hit a milestone of 200 union filings across the country.
It's Organized Starbucks Workers vs. Oligarchs in the City of Buffalo
Buffalo's baristas give us hope. Buffalo's pols, meanwhile, are giving oligarchy our hard-earned tax dollars.
Starbucks employees celebrate after voting to unionize in Buffalo, New York on December 9, 2021. (Photo: Eleonore Sens/AFP via Getty Images)
SAM PIZZIGATI
April 10, 2022 by Inequality.org
Want an up-close look at what’s going right — at how much is still going wrong — in the ongoing struggle against America’s oligarchs? These days you can see both on the shores of Lake Erie. Just shuffle off, as a Great Depression-era standard once advised, to Buffalo.
And what should you do when you get there? Go find a Starbucks. With a little bit of luck, you could find yourself gazing at the most impactful Starbucks outlet anywhere.
Until this past December, Starbucks had no unions at any of its over 9,000 corporate-run U.S. locations. But workers in upstate New York changed all that. Rank-and-filers at a Starbucks in Buffalo stared down and beat back the extravagantly funded opposition of a $50-billion corporate colossus. Against all odds, they voted to unionize.
That stunning rank-and-file victory has inspired a “labor spring” that’s now sweeping across the United States. Starbucks Workers United has so far won 16 elections nationwide, and workers at 176 other Starbucks storefronts have officially filed for union recognition.
First Starbucks, then Amazon. Who knows where America's most inspiring grassroots union upsurge since the 1930s is going to surface next?
How are the Corporate Starbucks power suits reacting? They’re panicking. The company has even brought back retired chief exec Howard Schultz for his third stint as Starbucks CEO. In his nine-year second stint, the intensely anti-union Schultz pocketed $553 million.
But Schultz the third-timer is clearing feeling the new worker pressure. On April 4, his first day back on the job, the billionaire announced that he was halting the $20 billion in stock buybacks the company had planned for the next few years. Stock buybacks, notes CEO pay analyst Sarah Anderson, serve to artificially inflate the value of a company’s shares — and the value of executives’ stock-based pay.
Why is Howard Schultz making this abrupt about-face on stock buybacks his first order of business? His announcement of the change proclaimed that “suspending” buybacks “will allow us to invest more profit into our people and our stores — the only way to create long-term value for all stakeholders.”
Translation: We’ll pause our greed-grabs until we can crush the union-organizing momentum that workers in Buffalo have inspired. Then we’ll get back to enriching the already rich.
That strike you as too cynical an interpretation of the current Corporate Starbucks gameplan? Take a look at the latest press reports. With Schultz back in charge, notes one, firings of union activists “appear to have accelerated,” with several union leaders in Buffalo either “fired or forced out.”
But crushing the union momentum that Buffalo baristas have inspired won’t come as easily as Schultz seems to believe. The rank-and-file challenge to America’s oligarchy has already burst past the confines of Starbucks. Most notably, Amazon workers at a huge Staten Island warehouse have scored the first-ever union win within the Amazon empire. First Starbucks, then Amazon. Who knows where America’s most inspiring grassroots union upsurge since the 1930s is going to surface next?
America’s oligarchs, on the other hand, still wield enormous power at our every political level. Just how entrenched does our oligarchy remain? We now have a new and particularly outrageous example — from Buffalo, the second-largest city of the nation’s second-largest “Blue State.”
Local pols in Buffalo, with the help of the state of New York, are now handing the billionaire owner of Buffalo’s pro football franchise $850 million to build a spanking new state-of-the-art stadium. That $850 million ranks as the single largest taxpayer subsidy in the plutocratic history of American professional sports.
Buffalo, to be sure, already has a football stadium. This existing stadium, open since 1973, sits right across the street from the site where the new stadium will go and functions fine for watching football games. But the facility lacks the luxury boxes, high-end restaurants, and other goodies that make big bucks for the owners of pro teams that play in newer ballparks and arenas.
The current owner of the Buffalo Bills, the Florida-based Terry Pegula, has spent the last decade not-so-subtly hinting that he’ll move the Bills to Toronto if the good citizens of Buffalo don’t “fix” his stadium problem. In 2014 and 2018, this extortion ploy won Pegula $95 million from state taxpayers for stadium renovations. But the renovations haven’t produced, Pegula claims, enough new revenue.
The new subsidy deal, Pegula apparently feels, hits the new-revenue sweet spot. The deal certainly does hit taxpayers in their wallets. State taxpayers will be on the hook for at least $600 million. Erie County taxpayers will pony up another $250 million. The tab for Pegula will come to $350 million, but a healthy chunk of that will come out of the pockets of season ticket holders. They’ll have to fork over $1,000 for personal seat licenses if they want to continue to watch the Bills punt, pass, and tackle.
One point worth keeping in mind: Bills owner Pegula, who owes his fortune to fracking, holds a net worth now running well over $5 billion. He could afford to bankroll the entire new stadium himself.
New York governor Kathy Hochul, even so, is calling the financing deal for Pegula’s new stadium a “point of pride” for all New Yorkers. For Hochul’s husband Bill, the deal could also be a potential “point” of serious personal profit. Bill Hochul serves as senior vice president and general counsel for Delaware North, the company that currently runs the concessions at all the Bills’ home games.
“Quite a sweetheart deal,” charges Native American leader Matthew Pagels, the president of New York’s Seneca Nation, a community that’s just lost a battle with the state over revenue-sharing funds.
New York’s new subsidy for the billionaire Pegula, agrees Stanford economist Roger Noll, rates as a “terrible deal.” The governor’s claim that subsidizing the Bills will pay off big for the regional economy, Noll just told a New York business publication, holds no water. Years of research, he points out, show that new stadiums typically have next to no impact on city-wide income and employment.
“Concessionaires in the stadium sell more food,” Noll explains, “but restaurants elsewhere sell less.”
None of this research, of course, matters to oligarchs. Billionaires like Terry Pegula have the power to get what they want. They may not all have super yachts as large as their Russian oligarch counterparts. But their presence and power foster a systemic corruption just as destructive.
Starbucks workers in Buffalo have delivered America’s oligarchs an unexpectedly solid blow. But our oligarchy will only crumble when we all start hammering together.
Want an up-close look at what’s going right — at how much is still going wrong — in the ongoing struggle against America’s oligarchs? These days you can see both on the shores of Lake Erie. Just shuffle off, as a Great Depression-era standard once advised, to Buffalo.
And what should you do when you get there? Go find a Starbucks. With a little bit of luck, you could find yourself gazing at the most impactful Starbucks outlet anywhere.
Until this past December, Starbucks had no unions at any of its over 9,000 corporate-run U.S. locations. But workers in upstate New York changed all that. Rank-and-filers at a Starbucks in Buffalo stared down and beat back the extravagantly funded opposition of a $50-billion corporate colossus. Against all odds, they voted to unionize.
That stunning rank-and-file victory has inspired a “labor spring” that’s now sweeping across the United States. Starbucks Workers United has so far won 16 elections nationwide, and workers at 176 other Starbucks storefronts have officially filed for union recognition.
First Starbucks, then Amazon. Who knows where America's most inspiring grassroots union upsurge since the 1930s is going to surface next?
How are the Corporate Starbucks power suits reacting? They’re panicking. The company has even brought back retired chief exec Howard Schultz for his third stint as Starbucks CEO. In his nine-year second stint, the intensely anti-union Schultz pocketed $553 million.
But Schultz the third-timer is clearing feeling the new worker pressure. On April 4, his first day back on the job, the billionaire announced that he was halting the $20 billion in stock buybacks the company had planned for the next few years. Stock buybacks, notes CEO pay analyst Sarah Anderson, serve to artificially inflate the value of a company’s shares — and the value of executives’ stock-based pay.
Why is Howard Schultz making this abrupt about-face on stock buybacks his first order of business? His announcement of the change proclaimed that “suspending” buybacks “will allow us to invest more profit into our people and our stores — the only way to create long-term value for all stakeholders.”
Translation: We’ll pause our greed-grabs until we can crush the union-organizing momentum that workers in Buffalo have inspired. Then we’ll get back to enriching the already rich.
That strike you as too cynical an interpretation of the current Corporate Starbucks gameplan? Take a look at the latest press reports. With Schultz back in charge, notes one, firings of union activists “appear to have accelerated,” with several union leaders in Buffalo either “fired or forced out.”
But crushing the union momentum that Buffalo baristas have inspired won’t come as easily as Schultz seems to believe. The rank-and-file challenge to America’s oligarchy has already burst past the confines of Starbucks. Most notably, Amazon workers at a huge Staten Island warehouse have scored the first-ever union win within the Amazon empire. First Starbucks, then Amazon. Who knows where America’s most inspiring grassroots union upsurge since the 1930s is going to surface next?
America’s oligarchs, on the other hand, still wield enormous power at our every political level. Just how entrenched does our oligarchy remain? We now have a new and particularly outrageous example — from Buffalo, the second-largest city of the nation’s second-largest “Blue State.”
Local pols in Buffalo, with the help of the state of New York, are now handing the billionaire owner of Buffalo’s pro football franchise $850 million to build a spanking new state-of-the-art stadium. That $850 million ranks as the single largest taxpayer subsidy in the plutocratic history of American professional sports.
Buffalo, to be sure, already has a football stadium. This existing stadium, open since 1973, sits right across the street from the site where the new stadium will go and functions fine for watching football games. But the facility lacks the luxury boxes, high-end restaurants, and other goodies that make big bucks for the owners of pro teams that play in newer ballparks and arenas.
The current owner of the Buffalo Bills, the Florida-based Terry Pegula, has spent the last decade not-so-subtly hinting that he’ll move the Bills to Toronto if the good citizens of Buffalo don’t “fix” his stadium problem. In 2014 and 2018, this extortion ploy won Pegula $95 million from state taxpayers for stadium renovations. But the renovations haven’t produced, Pegula claims, enough new revenue.
The new subsidy deal, Pegula apparently feels, hits the new-revenue sweet spot. The deal certainly does hit taxpayers in their wallets. State taxpayers will be on the hook for at least $600 million. Erie County taxpayers will pony up another $250 million. The tab for Pegula will come to $350 million, but a healthy chunk of that will come out of the pockets of season ticket holders. They’ll have to fork over $1,000 for personal seat licenses if they want to continue to watch the Bills punt, pass, and tackle.
One point worth keeping in mind: Bills owner Pegula, who owes his fortune to fracking, holds a net worth now running well over $5 billion. He could afford to bankroll the entire new stadium himself.
New York governor Kathy Hochul, even so, is calling the financing deal for Pegula’s new stadium a “point of pride” for all New Yorkers. For Hochul’s husband Bill, the deal could also be a potential “point” of serious personal profit. Bill Hochul serves as senior vice president and general counsel for Delaware North, the company that currently runs the concessions at all the Bills’ home games.
“Quite a sweetheart deal,” charges Native American leader Matthew Pagels, the president of New York’s Seneca Nation, a community that’s just lost a battle with the state over revenue-sharing funds.
New York’s new subsidy for the billionaire Pegula, agrees Stanford economist Roger Noll, rates as a “terrible deal.” The governor’s claim that subsidizing the Bills will pay off big for the regional economy, Noll just told a New York business publication, holds no water. Years of research, he points out, show that new stadiums typically have next to no impact on city-wide income and employment.
“Concessionaires in the stadium sell more food,” Noll explains, “but restaurants elsewhere sell less.”
None of this research, of course, matters to oligarchs. Billionaires like Terry Pegula have the power to get what they want. They may not all have super yachts as large as their Russian oligarch counterparts. But their presence and power foster a systemic corruption just as destructive.
Starbucks workers in Buffalo have delivered America’s oligarchs an unexpectedly solid blow. But our oligarchy will only crumble when we all start hammering together.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
SAM PIZZIGATI
Sam Pizzigati, veteran labor journalist and Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow, edits Inequality.org. His recent books include: "The Case for a Maximum Wage" (2018) and "The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class, 1900-1970"(2012).
The Problem With Starbucks Benefits, According To Employees
BY FELIX BEHR/APRIL 11, 2022 9:41 AM EDT
In recent weeks, multiple stories have come out about people who worked at Starbucks specifically for their IVF benefits. At the end of February, Autumn Lucy shared with Business Insider how the only way she could afford in vitro fertilization (IVF) was by picking up a part time job at Starbucks because most insurance companies do not cover IVF. True, she made no money from working, but she got the benefits package that allowed her to finally become a parent.
A similar story was shared with NBC news in late March. A couple couldn't have children without IVF and the only company in their area that offered benefits that covered this was Starbucks. So, Leah Russell applied, was hired, and learned that the benefits were structured in such a way that her actual paycheck could not cover the deductible.
Fortunately, her partner's salary could keep them afloat.
The point, though, is that even if one works full time, the amount one actually makes means that you often can't pay for the benefits you receive. The issue extends beyond IVF as well. Back in May, when Business Insider was covering how Starbucks was suffering the labor shortage, workers were already saying that even though they appreciated the benefits, that wasn't what they wanted: "Benefits do not make up for lackluster pay; free Spotify doesn't pay rent."
This is not to say that workers are demonizing the benefits Starbucks offers. "From tuition assistance to health care coverage," the Twitter account for Starbucks Workers United wrote back in August, "we appreciate the benefits Starbucks offers to partners. This doesn't mean things couldn't be better." Again, in the piece about staffing, another worker admitted "Our benefits are amazing, however in lieu of some of the frivolous ones such as Headspace, a meditation app, we would prefer higher wages and better staffing."
However, it is cheaper for Starbucks to offer free Spotify or Headspace because the subscription to these apps is less than what they'd have to pay in higher wages. It's analogous to the perk wars Corey Pein covered in Silicon Valley in which businesses will offer free steak suppers to those who worked late because the $20 spent on steak results in $200 made from their work. It is perhaps for this reason that even though Howard Schulz repeatedly states that there is no need for a representative between the workers and corporate, there has been a pattern of firing union agitators who if successful would push for more material benefits that a free subscription to Spotify, per Vice.
Starbucks taps new chief strategy officer amid growing union tension
Published April 11, 2022
Aneurin Canham-Clyne
Britt will be responsible for developing long-term strategies focusing on employees and customers, and joined the company in April, according to a bio on Starbucks' website.
The news of Britt's hire follows a dramatic week for Starbucks, which began with interim CEO Howard Schultz suspending stock buybacks and ended with Starbucks Workers United winning six elections in two days.
Britt's bio highlights his tenure at a workforce development firm, "helping provide educational access and training opportunities to front-line employees." That experience may prove useful at Starbucks, which is facing a nationwide union campaign reaching more than 200 stores. The coffee chain also posted a job listing on April 6 seeking a labor lawyer with experience handling unfair labor practice charges and strike contingency planning.
Starbucks is also contending with tension between its interim CEO and union supporters. Schultz attended a number of discussions with Starbucks employees over the last week, capped off by a meeting Friday where Schultz allegedly asked Madison Hall, a pro-union worker in Long Beach, California, "If you hate Starbucks so much, why don't you go somewhere else?"
On Monday, Schultz wrote a Starbucks blog post suggesting Starbucks Workers United union's goal is at odds with the company's values. In the post, Schultz writes that the company will become "the best version of Starbucks by co-creating our future directly as partners" and said employees "must not be distracted by the different vision being put forward" by pro-union workers.
"While not all the partners supporting unionization are colluding with outside union forces, the critical point is that I do not believe conflict, division and dissension ... benefits Starbucks or our partners," Schultz wrote.
The blog post includes a video of Schultz speaking with Starbucks employees at the listening session in Long Beach, California, but the clip does not include an exchange between Schultz and Hall. Hall has not responded to Restaurant Dive's requests for comment on this alleged exchange.
On Thursday and Friday, Starbucks Workers United won elections in six stores in New York, including every store in the city of Ithaca, in vote counts observed by Restaurant Dive. In a seventh vote count at a store in Overland Park, Kansas, the union led 6-1 in counted ballots, but 7 ballots were challenged. Workers United's Chicago and Midwest Regional Joint Board said those ballots were challenged by the company's lawyers, and said the union expected a victory once challenges were resolved.
In Overland Park, three pro-union workers were fired before the vote count, and union supporters launched a strike between April 7 and April 11 at the store. The pro-union workers allege they were retaliated against for organizing, but a Starbucks spokesperson said all three workers were terminated for disciplinary infractions not related to organizing.
A new strategy-focused executive could help Starbucks better navigate growing union pressure and ease shareholder fears. Last month, a contingent of of 73 shareholders wrote a letter to Starbucks urging it to change its approach to the union's growth to protect Starbucks' reputation. The shareholders represent over $3.4 trillion in assets, and they are especially concerned with complaints lodged by the National Labor Relations Board against Starbucks' anti-union response.
Published April 11, 2022
Aneurin Canham-Clyne
Associate Editor
RESTURAUNT DIVE
Courtesy of Starbucks
Dive Brief:
Starbucks has hired Frank Britt, who previously served as CEO of workforce development firm Penn Foster, as chief strategy officer, a Starbucks spokesperson confirmed. Matthew Ryan previously served as CSO but has not worked at Starbucks since 2018.
Courtesy of Starbucks
Dive Brief:
Starbucks has hired Frank Britt, who previously served as CEO of workforce development firm Penn Foster, as chief strategy officer, a Starbucks spokesperson confirmed. Matthew Ryan previously served as CSO but has not worked at Starbucks since 2018.
Britt will be responsible for developing long-term strategies focusing on employees and customers, and joined the company in April, according to a bio on Starbucks' website.
The news of Britt's hire follows a dramatic week for Starbucks, which began with interim CEO Howard Schultz suspending stock buybacks and ended with Starbucks Workers United winning six elections in two days.
Britt's bio highlights his tenure at a workforce development firm, "helping provide educational access and training opportunities to front-line employees." That experience may prove useful at Starbucks, which is facing a nationwide union campaign reaching more than 200 stores. The coffee chain also posted a job listing on April 6 seeking a labor lawyer with experience handling unfair labor practice charges and strike contingency planning.
Starbucks is also contending with tension between its interim CEO and union supporters. Schultz attended a number of discussions with Starbucks employees over the last week, capped off by a meeting Friday where Schultz allegedly asked Madison Hall, a pro-union worker in Long Beach, California, "If you hate Starbucks so much, why don't you go somewhere else?"
On Monday, Schultz wrote a Starbucks blog post suggesting Starbucks Workers United union's goal is at odds with the company's values. In the post, Schultz writes that the company will become "the best version of Starbucks by co-creating our future directly as partners" and said employees "must not be distracted by the different vision being put forward" by pro-union workers.
"While not all the partners supporting unionization are colluding with outside union forces, the critical point is that I do not believe conflict, division and dissension ... benefits Starbucks or our partners," Schultz wrote.
The blog post includes a video of Schultz speaking with Starbucks employees at the listening session in Long Beach, California, but the clip does not include an exchange between Schultz and Hall. Hall has not responded to Restaurant Dive's requests for comment on this alleged exchange.
On Thursday and Friday, Starbucks Workers United won elections in six stores in New York, including every store in the city of Ithaca, in vote counts observed by Restaurant Dive. In a seventh vote count at a store in Overland Park, Kansas, the union led 6-1 in counted ballots, but 7 ballots were challenged. Workers United's Chicago and Midwest Regional Joint Board said those ballots were challenged by the company's lawyers, and said the union expected a victory once challenges were resolved.
In Overland Park, three pro-union workers were fired before the vote count, and union supporters launched a strike between April 7 and April 11 at the store. The pro-union workers allege they were retaliated against for organizing, but a Starbucks spokesperson said all three workers were terminated for disciplinary infractions not related to organizing.
A new strategy-focused executive could help Starbucks better navigate growing union pressure and ease shareholder fears. Last month, a contingent of of 73 shareholders wrote a letter to Starbucks urging it to change its approach to the union's growth to protect Starbucks' reputation. The shareholders represent over $3.4 trillion in assets, and they are especially concerned with complaints lodged by the National Labor Relations Board against Starbucks' anti-union response.
