21 Starbucks Stores Plan To Form Unions In 1-Day Blitz

Starbucks baristas from 21 stores around the country told the company Tuesday that they plan to organize, potentially adding hundreds of new members to a union campaign that’s battling the coffee chain for first contracts.

The union, Workers United, said it is the largest group of Starbucks stores to go public with their organizing plans in a single day since the effort began in Western New York in 2021. The 21 locations are scattered across 14 states from coast to coast.

Workers sent a joint letter to the company’s CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, demanding “higher wages, fair and consistent scheduling, improved benefits, and a safe and dignified workplace.”

“We have been met with higher and higher expectations without being given the resources to meet them,” they wrote.

A Starbucks spokesperson said that although the company believes a “direct relationship as partners is core to our culture,” it would respect employees’ right to organize and intends to negotiate first contracts with unionized stores this year.

“We encourage all partners at stores petitioning for representation to get the facts, make an informed choice and ensure their voice heard by voting in neutral, secret-ballot elections,” the spokesperson said.

Baristas at roughly 400 of Starbucks’ 9,000 corporate-owned stores have formed unions with Workers United as part of the campaign, one of the biggest U.S. labor organizing successes in years. Workers United has won more than 80% of the union elections that have been held, according to the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that oversees elections and investigates union-busting allegations.

But the pace at which stores are unionizing has slowed since 2022 in the face of an aggressive