Starbucks employees make history with the chain’s first union

The workers of two Starbucks coffee shops in Buffalo (New York) were merged today in an embrace sprinkled with shouts, jumps and tears when they learned of the favorable result of the vote to constitute the first labor union in the US of the corporation, and that represents a great boost for the labor movement in the country.

Three coffee shops had separately applied to form unions, but only two, one located on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo and another in the nearby town of Hamburg. They achieved their purpose, although the results have yet to be confirmed given the existence of several ballots that have been rejected by the parties.

With a great explosion of joy, the twenty workers present broke the two hours of tension and uncertainty in which the vote counting was prolonged, carried out live and via telematics by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a state body that called a vote-by-mail vote after accepting a request from three coffee shops to partner under the umbrella of the SEIU union.

I’m Brisack, one of the organizers, confesses to Efe that it has been so focused “on ensuring that the stores stay together” in the face of anti-union attacks by the company – with 245,000 employees in its 9,000 stores in the US – that it still has not you can believe they have succeeded.

“We hope that after this, Starbucks will stop its campaign of harassment of the unions, turn the page and sit at the negotiating table and we can create a contract that both we and Starbucks can be proud of,” he concludes.

Voters heard the announcement in the office they have established to coordinate their efforts, where numerous local and international media were concentrated after the first big snow of winter in Buffalo, today covered in snow.

“This victory comes after a long road (and) what the company has done to try to stop it in the last 90 days, with continuous tactics of union repression, intimidation and surveillance,” says Michelle Eisen, who has been working for 11 years. for Starbucks.

But above all, Eisen emphasizes that this achievement, “in a broader sense, comes after several years working with the company that was one of the best companies in the country to work for but where working conditions have worsened a lot in recent years. five years”.

The Starbucks rejection

As expected, Starbucks has made no secret of its displeasure with the results, and in a statement has warned of the alleged negative effects that would arise on the company if this movement is generalized within the corporation.

“If a significant portion of our employees were to unionize, our labor costs could increase and our business could be adversely affected by other requirements and expectations that could increase our costs, change the culture of our employees, decrease our flexibility and disrupt our business,” He said.

In addition, he added that these union organizing efforts can be detrimental. “They could have a negative impact on how our brand is perceived and have adverse effects on our business, including our financial results,” the company explained.

A victory for a sector badly hit by the pandemic

The CUNY University professor of New York Alan Aja considers this to be an important victory for the union struggle in the United States, especially considering the private sector, where, according to data from the United States Government, the level of affiliation is 6.3% in the private sector, and barely reaches 1.2% among workers in cafeterias and restaurants.

“There is a wave of labor unionization in the private sector, where, through deregulation and hostile public policies, it has seen a decrease in unionization and the rights of workers in general during the last decades,” he tells EFE.

The organizing director of the 32 BJ union of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Rob Hill, also explained to EFE this week that unionism is gaining momentum “among service sector workers, frontline workers, who we now call essential.”

“Suddenly, they come to the fore and it is recognized how important they are as suppliers in this pandemic and for the economy and how poorly paid and poorly treated they are,” he said.

A fight backed by the Democratic left

In the face of Starbucks’ titanic efforts to abort the vote, which included sending dozens of officials to Buffalo Ever since the workers submitted the request to form a union in the summer, the Democratic left has sided with the workers.

One of the last to do so was former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who on Monday held a virtual meeting with several employees in which he stressed that “young workers are fighting back against an economy that only works for the rich.”

Also, the senator and former candidate for the presidency, Kirsten Gillibrand, or the young congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortés, known for her progressive ideas, traveled in person to Buffalo to meet with the workers of the unruly cafes to show their support and express their support. solidarity.