UNIONISATION drives are sweeping Starbucks and Amazon workplaces across the United States from East to West, with strikes gaining powerful huge support from the public, especially from other unionised workers.
There are now hundreds of US Starbucks stores where workers have voted to unionise – but the company has only engaged in ‘first bargaining sessions’ at three of them.
However, the National Labour Relations Board is handling hundreds of unfair labour practice charges against the company, and the reason for that is not hard to see: the company’s vicious union-busting campaign continues, including the firing of one union supporter after another.
The fact that stores continue voting to unionise shows the workers’ determination.
The Cedar Avenue Starbucks in Mineapolis joins a fast-growing number of unionised Starbucks locations, jumpstarted by the first unionised store in Buffalo, New York. in December of 2021.
Since then, 318 stores nationwide have filed to unionise through Starbucks Workers United, an SEIU affiliate.
Two hundred and nineteen of those stores voted to approve the union.
In May, the Cedar Avenue store voted 14-3 to unionise. Shortly thereafter, workers said the conditions declined even further from what they had come to expect in terms of staffing numbers and scheduling issues.
The store’s opening was shifted 30 minutes later on weekends after most of the morning shift employees joined the organising committee, shortening the morning shifts.
Certain employees were taken off the schedule outright for days at a time.
Though similar unilateral decisions from management have gone uncontested before, the difference this time is that workers had a newfound familiarity with their protections under the National Labour Relations Act (NLRA).
Additionally, as outlined in the NLRA, it is the responsibility of both employers and employees to ‘confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.’
Once the employees are represented by a Labour organisation, Starbucks may not make unilateral decisions around things like store hours and hiring practices without a bargaining process, actions which employees at the Cedar Avenue store say have continued, and even escalated, since the union formed.
The strike was planned to last only two days because of Starbucks’ retaliatory responses to organised stores during the union push of the past several months.
Emily Mahoney, a shift supervisor who has worked with the company for five years, said the main reason behind the strategy of a contained strike is to avoid firings: ‘We don’t want anybody to get fired.
‘Legally, if we say we’re striking over an unfair labour practice – here’s where we’re starting, here’s where we’re ending – that’s just less retaliation against everybody.
‘We’ve seen other folks get fired in more high profile stores, and that makes people a little nervous.’
Starbucks, founded in 1971, is currently led by CEO Howard Schultz, who has a net worth of $4 billion and a decades-long record of anti-union business practices.
The store in Buffalo, NY was not the first to move towards unionisation.
The company fought union drives in the past: Seattle in 1985, New York City in 2004, Philadelphia in 2019.
In 2019, workers at a Philadelphia Starbucks location began a union drive, only to be discharged from their positions after the company ‘closely monitored their public social media activity, attempted to gauge employees’ support for the employees’ efforts, and unlawfully spied on protected conversations one of the employees initiated with coworkers,’ according to a 2021 NLRB ruling in favour of the baristas.
Though the company was penalised for unlawful union retaliation in the 2019 effort, this most recent wave of worker organising has faced more subtle pushback from Starbucks Corporate.
In October 2020, Unicorn Riot reported on a Starbucks at 1900 Market St. in Philadelphia where an employee filed a complaint with the NLRB alleging she was punished with a reduction in hours for organising a strike and was told not to discuss working conditions with her coworkers.
Starbucks has started to close down stores in several major cities that are in various stages of organising, including Washington, D.C. and Seattle.
The company cites safety concerns as the reason behind the closures, though many workers and union representatives say that the move is a thinly veiled attempt to discourage union activity.
To further subdue union efforts, Starbucks announced in May that all tenured employees will receive a wage increase and enhanced training.
Starbucks is currently facing complaints of over 200 violations of the NLRA, including one from a Minneapolis location, 5351 Lyndale Ave S., filed on July 18 alleging coercive actions and statements restricting employees’ right to self-organisation.
For now, workers at the Cedar Avenue store said all their energy is focused on bringing Starbucks management to the negotiating table to sign a contract that will ensure sustainable working conditions and equitable pay.
On Saturday, August 13, workers at a unionised Starbucks store in Santa Cruz went on a three-day strike.
Organiser Joe Thompson, a Starbucks shift supervisor who remains a member of the Starbucks Workers United union, said the stoppage was due to alleged unfair labour practices: Starbucks announced ‘unilateral changes to hours,’ denied wage and benefit improvements based on union membership, and disturbed the union’s ability to distribute pro-union materials, Thompson says.
Rallies were held at noon Saturday outside of 745 Ocean Street Starbucks location, as the Ocean store is the only location participating in the strike.
Starbucks workers have held strikes in at least 17 states, and two Santa Cruz locations became the first California shops to unionise in May.
Thompson says, the 24 unionised employees all voted unanimously to stop work. ‘We’ve received a lot of support from community partners, first responders, and it feels amazing to have everyone’s resources behind us,’ Thompson said.
The NLRB is currently processing numerous Labour practice charges against Starbucks.
Meanwhile, dozens of Amazon employees at the company’s air hub in San Bernardino, California, on Monday abandoned their workstations mid-shift over low wages and concerns regarding heat safety.
The walkout in Southern California marks the first coordinated labour action in Amazon’s growing airfreight division, which uses Prime-branded planes to fly packages and goods around the country much like UPS or FedEx.
The employees, who are independently organised, said they didn’t plan to return to work on Monday, in an effort to pressure Amazon to raise wages and improve safety.
Monday’s walkout was the latest sign that pro-union sentiment is spreading throughout Amazon’s ranks – this time at a uniquely vulnerable point in its logistics network.
Even as Amazon, the nation’s second-largest private employer, pits its weight against organised labour — trying, for example, to get the results of the Amazon Labour Union’s historic election victory in Staten Island thrown out – the walkout in California demonstrates how workers are continuing to independently organise around the country.
Anna Ortega, 23, said she hopes the San Bernardino walkout that she participated in forces Amazon to ‘stop and think about what they’re doing and why.’
‘With the rising cost of everything in our lives, it’s getting tough to make ends meet,’ said Ortega, who makes $17.30 an hour. ‘It doesn’t make any sense that people who work here should be on food stamps or struggling financially.’
Workers are also asking for better heat safety measures as the temperature has often reached above 100 degrees this summer, causing heat-related illness in particular for workers who are outdoors loading and unloading planes.
Federal workplace health and safety officials have recently investigated the deaths of three Amazon workers in New Jersey and expanded a probe into safety issues at Amazon warehouses nationally.