After a months-long battle, workers at the Starbucks location at Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, NY, have voted to unionize, marking the first successful attempt at unionizing the company’s U.S locations since it first went public almost thirty years ago.
According to the Wallstreet Journal, Howard Schultz, who has served as chairman and CEO at Starbucks, “said in a letter to workers following the visit that he was saddened to think that workers felt they needed a representative to obtain what they needed from the company.”
The vote was 19-8 in favor of the unionization under Workers United New York, a branch of the Service Employees International Union. The Camp Road location in Buffalo, a second Starbucks café, voted 8-12 against a union.
The Genesee Street location in Buffalo voted 15-9 in favor of unionization. However, seven ballots are in dispute due to a challenge aimed at the voters’ eligibility to participate.
Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson has addressed the unionization vote taking place, saying that all Buffalo employees should be able to vote on whether to unionize and not just three stores.
“Many of you have told me you greatly value the flexibility to work between stores, to swap and pick up shifts, giving you the opportunity to connect with partners across different stores as one community,” said Johnson in his 2021 holiday message. “Because of this, we feel strongly that all partners in Buffalo should have a voice in the elections, which may unfortunately not be the case. While we recognize this creates some level of uncertainty, we respect the process that is underway, and independent of any outcome in these elections, we will continue to stay true to our mission and values.”
In the restaurant industry, unions are rare. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only an estimated 1.2% of workers in the industry were members of unions in 2020, which is below the private-sector unionization rate of 6.3%. But the effort to organize has increased through a tight labor market.
This year alone has seen union drives by Amazon workers and strikes by John Deere and Kellogg’s employees.
After the vote counts that take place Thursday, the ballot will go through the NLRB regional director to be certified, which could take up to a week.
The regional director will examine all objections or challenges, which could require a hearing to resolve. Stores that voted against a union can petition for another election next year.
