On Monday, December 13th, employees from two different Starbucks locations in Boston came together to write a letter of intent to unionize. The letter, which is addressed to Starbucks President and CEO Kevin Johnson, declares that “we are organizing as a union in Boston because we believe that this is the best way to contribute meaningfully to our partnership with the company.” The letter goes on to say that “we are joining the efforts of other partners to bring out the best in all of us.”
Just days earlier, on December 9th, a branch in Buffalo, New York became the first unionized Starbucks location in the nation. Unionizing efforts have been steadily growing across every sector in the United States. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that the percentage of workers who belong to a union is 10.8%, up .5 percentage points from 2019. But in that same report, the BLS reports that the rate of unionization within the food and beverage sector is significantly lower: only 3.4% of food prep and serving related workers are unionized, and only 1.2% of folks working in food and drinking places belong to a union.
The Starbucks union could change that—and we’re witnessing that change happening right now.
“Talk about a healing and validation moment,” says Mason Lopez, a barista at Tartine in Berkeley, Calif., which went through its own successful union campaign in early 2020. Lopez worked at Starbucks from 2002-2008, and used their experiences at the mega chain to inform his organizing work almost a decade later. After their time at Starbucks, Lopez left the coffee industry and became involved in community organizing before jumping back behind the bar and realizing not much has changed. “It took half a shift to notice that familiar feeling in the air…but I was a little bit older and learned how to stick up to my boss.”
The workers at Tartine successfully organized and won their union vote, along with dozens of small restaurants and other hospitality businesses across the nation, including Tattersall Distillery in Minneapolis, Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland, and Colectivo Coffee with 18 locations in Milwaukee, Madison, and Chicago. Although each of these union efforts received national attention, nothing has captured recent attention like the Starbucks union.
With over 9,000 company-operated locations in the United States, national and widespread attention is being paid to Starbucks. Why? Because the win in Buffalo could spark a massive movement amongst hospitality workers. People who never thought a union was possible in their workplace can take inspiration from the worker-led movement born in one of the nation’s largest and most powerful chains.
Although union numbers went up in 2020—partially due to the COVID-19 pandemic and increased interest in higher wages and better work/life balance—union membership has been in decline over the last few decades. NPR’s Planet Money reports that over a third of workers were members of a union 50 years ago, which is a significant dip from the 10.8% statistic reported by the BLS in 2020. Furthermore, the BLS statistics show that union membership is highest in local level public sector jobs (41.7%), which they classify as workers such as “police officers, firefighters, and teachers.” When you look at private sector workers alone, which includes workers with public-facing service and retail positions, that percentage drops to 6.2%.
Broadly, a lot of the discussions around unionizing center around money. Union members make about 11% more in wages than their non-unionized workers, which could result in higher operating costs for businesses. However, union workers are also more likely to stay at their jobs, reducing losses associated with training new workers and staff shortages, with one study estimating that turnover costs an employer 39.6% of a worker’s yearly salary. In an industry with such a high turnover rate (some studies estimate that the turnover rate in the fast food industry is 150% and the restaurant industry as a whole hovers around 75%) many businesses may benefit from analyzing strategies to keep workers employed, which ties into issues of sustainability and workplace burnout and employee longevity within the industry.
There aren’t a ton of third-party studies about the effects of unionization on businesses’ bottom lines (some research does exist, but most comes from anti-union consultants and firms) but a common threat amongst business owners is that the business will either be shut down or downsized. However, one study from John DiNardo of the University of Michigan and David S. Lee of UC Berkeley “estimate[s] a very small union recognition effect on employer survival, on the order of 1 percent…We therefore conclude that unions likely do not affect businesses by making them more susceptible to failure or re-location, despite the fears of many employers and employees.”
The Starbucks union will attempt to address common workplace grievances—ones that plague workers across the food and beverage industry—and perhaps the biggest reason isn’t a tangible benefit, but the right to have a seat at the table. “Over my six years with the company, I've seen and heard so many reasonable requests dismissed out of hand with the reasoning that ‘we don't have enough money to do that,’” says Arielle Rebekah, a freelance writer who worked for Starbucks for six years. “Three of the biggest staff frustrations were that corporate was constantly cutting labor; [a need for] higher pay since we made so little in tips and corporate told us it was "too complicated" to allow for credit card users (probably about 60% of our customers) to tip directly on their card; and more predictable schedules.”
The Starbucks union has yet to draft a contract, so it’s unclear what changes will be made, but many of the reasons Rebekah listed are common complaints amongst service workers. Which begs the question, will food service workers across the industry start to unionize?
“It gives me hope that this is a broader movement with backing from longtime labor organizers,” says a former barista at Pavement Coffeehouse in Boston (they asked not to be named). The baristas at Pavement Coffeehouse unionized and were voluntarily recognized by the owners in June 2021, and the former Pavement barista believes that having the support of local labor organizers is what made their union effort successful. “I think we got recognized because we had such a strong foundation and because we had professional organizers with us when the whole idea of a union was still nascent. If it wasn’t for that I think [the owners] would have fought it.”
It’s not only the attention of labor workers that matters in this moment—although having access to trained union organizers will propel momentum forward. But there’s also the fact that the unionized baristas at Starbucks may be the first unionized workforce that many people will interact with on a daily basis. The majority of people don’t interact with firefighters or teachers regularly, but many people do order coffee, or go to restaurants, or somehow interact with hospitality workers in their everyday lives.
The road to unionizing isn’t straightforward as it seems, and the initial momentum of the Starbucks union is in danger of losing steam if history has taught us anything about the pace of ratifying unions. In a letter sent to Starbucks baristas (and then shared with NPR) Starbucks North America President Rossann Williams wrote that the vote would result in "no immediate changes." The letter isn’t challenging the results of the union, but rather that no changes will take place until a contract is ratified.
A study by Bloomberg Law shows that it takes, on average, 409 days between an affirmative yes vote and a first contract. Employers and union organizers are allowed to challenge the outcome of the vote if they believe any of the votes cast are invalid. For example, the Starbucks union challenged six of the “no” votes saying that those employees did not work at their location. The owners at Colectivo, whose owners initially accepted the outcome of their union vote in August 2021, have since challenged its validity twice—the owners of Colectivo wouldn’t go on the record as to why, but their challenges have delayed the process of negotiating a union contract. Challenging the union vote can hold up the process of negotiation and are exacerbated in particular within the hospitality industry due to high levels of turnover.
“My location has turned over fully since our election. I’m currently the only worker here that voted,” says Ryan Coffel, a barista who works for the Logan Square branch of Colectivo in Chicago. “ I know full well that corporations will do everything in their power to frustrate workers into quitting. I don’t blame people for quitting, but we all need to be aware of just how hard it is.” Businesses are afforded a lot of leeway when it comes to working with unions. Although they must negotiate contracts “in good faith,” many workers face similar conditions as Coffel: the Starbucks baristas, who filed a complaint with the NLRB, allege that Starbucks “has responded to union organizing efforts by partners in the Buffalo area by engaging in a campaign of threats, intimidation, surveillance, solicitation of grievances, and the closing of facilities, among other conduct.”
Even though Coffel is still flying solo, he still feels hopeful for the future. “Organizing a union in a historically anti-union sector motivates me to actually believe a better life is possible,” he says. “I want to be a part of something lasting. If our victory and Starbucks’ victory inspires more to feel confident to organize and win, then we’ve done our job. The food and drink workers have been labeled ‘heroes’ during the pandemic. It’s time we’re treated as such!”
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