Union vote may be on horizon for Starbucks
To unionize or not to unionize? That’s the question facing employees at a Wantagh Starbucks, which became the fifth location on Long Island to put the question up for an employee vote last month.
Starbucks workers filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to unionize under Starbucks Workers United, which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union. The original union vote, scheduled for this month, will instead be a mail-in ballot ending Sept. 2.
The move is part of a nationwide workplace tug of war between Starbucks and its employees that is now brewing here. By unionizing, employees are hoping to have a bigger say in their working conditions, including more consistent work hours, higher wages, and better safeguards of their sick leave and paid time off.
Jake McAvoy, a shift supervisor and union campaign organizer at the 1143 Wantagh Ave., location, said that the coronavirus pandemic had swiftly and dramatically brought to the surface underlying labor issues that plagued Starbucks workers for some time. “While there were problems before,” he said, “the pandemic really brought into focus many of the problems we had encountered.”
The 27-year-old McAvoy, who began working at the store in November 2018, said that while he and his co-workers were manning the store during the pandemic as front-line workers late last year, regularly putting their health at risk, management often pushed them to endure alarming levels of workplace stress. Employees were often pressured to come to work even when they had been in contact with others who tested positive for Covid-19, McAvoy said.
He recalled that a co-worker – referred to as a “partner” in Starbucks corporate lingo — “once had a 103-degree fever and was told that they either needed to get to work or find someone to cover their shift.”
Partners have been slighted by the company in other ways, McAvoy contended, including facing major cuts in hours, a continuing culture of guilt surrounding sick leave, and a refusal by management to bump wages to more than slightly above minimum wage.
Murmurings about starting a union began in February, but McAvoy and some of his co-workers began working hard to recruit members in April. “We just talked to our co-workers and shared our beliefs with them,” he said.
“Most were able to see how things would be better with a union. We’ve been open and honest with all of our fellow employees — whether they support the union or not. We firmly believe that the benefits of unionization outweigh the very few disadvantages.”
Starbucks has been less than thrilled about the latest developments. “We are listening and learning from the partners in these stores, as we always do across the country,” spokeswoman Elana Edelman said in a statement. “From the beginning, we’ve been clear in our belief that we are better together as partners, without a union between us, and that conviction has not changed.”
For workers, seeking a seat at the bargaining table hasn’t come easily. The coffee giant has pushed back hard against its employees’ unionizing efforts here and across the country. Union organizers have shared stories of facing a steady stream of resistance from company executives. McAvoy said that the Wantagh store is no different.
While Edelman said in the statement that “we’ve also been clear that we respect our partners’ legal right to organize,” McAvoy claims that he has seen “quite a few union-busting strategies” on the floor.
Since his team has filed for an election, the manager and district manager have regularly been scheduling one-on-one meetings with workers, even on their days off, to give them the “facts” about unionization.
“These ‘facts’ have been, in some cases, thinly veiled threats about the loss of benefits and hours,” said McAvoy. “Management has also been trying to identify partners that are on the fence and use them to convince other partners to vote against the union by telling them that we are lying to them about everything.”
McAvoy alleged he has also witnessed a spike in the number of “coaching conversations” and “corrective actions” to intimidate potential union members. “Just the other day,” he said, “I was pulled aside to be warned that I was out of the dress code for wearing the same shoes that I had been wearing every day for several months.”
Starbucks executives have taken company-wide actions to entice workers away from unionization. In May, interim chief executive Howard Shultz announced promised wage bumps for non-unionized workers and non-unionizing stores, a move that has come under fire from union organizations and labor legal experts.
While McAvoy is not happy with the long delay of the vote, he is cautiously optimistic about its prospects. “We had over 60 percent of our partners sign union cards,” he said, “and have had even more commit to voting for a union since the petition was filed.”
