Starbucks workers vote for a union at first store in Seattle

Starbucks workers at a Seattle store have voted 9-0 to join a union, the first in the city and state where the coffee chain is headquartered and which brings home a labor movement in growth among its workers spreading across the country.

A vote was contested and a webcast of Tuesday’s count by the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, was not opened with three ballots not returned.

“This is Seattle ‘s first election, with several Seattle stores [for elections] – It has a symbolic significance for this reason, “John Logan, a professor and director of Labor and Occupational Studies at San Francisco State University, told CBS MoneyWatch. low-wage food retailer. “services sector,” he said.

Tuesday’s vote comes three months after bartenders at a Starbucks store in New York State voted in favor of a uniona first of about 9,000 company-owned stores in the U.S. Workers at five more stores in the Buffalo area and another in Mesa, Arizona, have remained the same ever since.

Starbucks workers at more than 150 stores in 27 states have called for union elections to join Workers United, a subsidiary of the International Service Employees Union.

Seattle-based Starbucks has opposed efforts to organize store-by-store, arguing unsuccessfully that a choice should include all stores in a region.

“If there is ever to be union revitalization in the U.S., it should go through these kinds of campaigns, which are spreading like wildfire, capturing the imagination of young people,” Logan said. “The question for the wider labor movement is what to do to facilitate this process.”

Last week, the NLRB filed a lawsuit against Starbucks over allegations that it retaliated against two workers trying to set up shop in Phoenix. The company has repeatedly denied allegations of attempted intimidation of workers.

Starbucks ’organizational effort is led by younger workers who are less afraid of what might happen to them, as Logan sees it, citing a high demand for workers by many employers who have resurfaced from the pandemic. They think, “If I lost my job, I could probably get another one quite easily,” he said.

Logan finds similarities between Starbucks and a recent campaign to unionize a REI store in New York. In both cases, “there is a union involved, but it is almost a process of self-organization, that workers talk to each other,” he said. “It’s not really about a big union investing millions and millions of dollars in a campaign at McDonald’s, it’s more grassroots and worker-led, and companies are probably more afraid of it.”