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Scores of unionized Starbucks baristas from the Pacific Northwest descended on a Seattle hotel Wednesday to present Starbucks attorneys with a series of proposals they had been researching and discussing for more than six months.
A federal starting wage of $20 an hour. A 37-hour week guarantee for full-time employees. A 100 percent employer-sponsored health insurance plan for full-time and part-time employees. Credit card tipping in all stores.
The session lasted nearly four hours — much longer than any of the 90 or so previous negotiation sessions held since last October — though workers didn’t have a chance to share all of their demands with management before Starbucks’ lawyers packed up to leave.
Starbucks Workers United’s demands come at a time of heightened attention to labor conditions the coffee mega chain. Starbucks held its annual shareholder meeting Thursday, where investors voted on whether to request an independent assessment of the company’s commitment to international labor standards. (The results will be released in the coming days.) Workers at about 100 stores in 40 cities across the country went on strike on Wednesday in a signal to the company’s new CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, who started the strike this week started. Founder Howard Schultz resigned as head of the company on Monday, two weeks earlier than expected, though he still plans to testify about his labor practices before Congress next week.
Many organizers believe that winning big concessions from Starbucks would not only transform the lives of thousands of Starbucks workers, but also raise standards for fast food and other low-wage workers across the country. But while the union and Starbucks continue to bicker over the terms of the bargaining, the company is bickering unionizing in its shops, it is not clear if a deal is within reach.
“We know the whole world is watching,” said Jasmine Leli, 38, a Starbucks barista in Buffalo and a member of the national negotiating committee. “It’s bigger than ‘Oh, we want a contract.’ This could change the game for the entire labor movement.”
Andrew Trull, a spokesman for the company, said Starbucks did not seek to delay negotiations and the company came to the table as required by law in stores that voted to unionize.
“Rather than publicize rallies and protests, we encourage them [the union] to honor their commitments by responding to our proposed meetings and meeting us in person to advance the negotiation process in good faith,” Trull said in response to Wednesday’s strikes.
Historic union successes at high-profile companies like Starbucks, Amazon and Apple have drawn attention since the peak of the pandemic. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Over the past 16 months, Starbucks baristas at 288 of the company’s 9,000 stores have voted to unionize in what has resulted in one of the most high-profile industrial action in decades, despite a full-blown effort by the company to stamp out the campaign.
The union says Starbucks has insisted on bargaining store-by-store rather than with the union as a unit. According to Starbucks, early in their campaign the union called for the organization of stores to stores.
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Winning a union election is often just the first step for workers trying to secure the wage increases and benefits that organizing can bring. Research from Cornell University found that about a third of all unions sign an agreement within a year of winning an election. But some never do — and Starbucks workers have yet to be close to signing a single collective bargaining agreement. Multiple judges have ordered Starbucks to deal with multiple stores immediately, but litigation is pending.
“The contract is what can show workers everywhere the real, tangible benefits that unionized workers can achieve,” said Rebecca Givan, professor of labor science at Rutgers University. “If there is a strong first contract in just one [Starbucks] Store, that’s probably going to trigger a new organizational push, and that’s why the company is fighting so hard not to have to agree to a contract.”
The demands workers presented to Starbucks management in Seattle on Wednesday will be the same demands Starbucks workers will make at cafes across the United States in the coming months.
To arrive at the proposals, the union organizers debated how much they should charge Starbucks to increase their wages and studied federal statistics on the cost of living and inflation. They decided to charge at least $20 an hour nationwide. In the most expensive regions, the union requires a starting wage of $25.40 per hour.
Low-wage workers have rallied behind $15 an hour for more than a decade, but Starbucks organizers say that’s not enough to keep up with inflation. The company increased its minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2022, with the average worker now making $17.50 an hour.
“Fifteen dollars an hour might have been good 10 or 15 years ago, but not now,” said Jacob Welsh, 31, a shift supervisor at a Pittsburgh Starbucks who has worked for the company for seven years and is a member of the union’s national bargaining committee . “Everyone wants more money”
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But the main priority for the union is guaranteed hours and predictable schedules. Workers want a guarantee of 37 hours a week for full-time workers and 20 hours for part-time workers, and the right to have the same schedule every week or a month.
Starbucks workers often assume the company is offering a full-time job scheduled for only one shift a week, union leaders said. Some workers who don’t average at least 20 hours a week have lost access to company health insurance and full tuition reimbursement for an online degree at Arizona State University, benefits that have long attracted the company.
Scheduling, which is at the discretion of store managers, can vary widely, disrupting sleep schedules, personal lives and baristas’ ability to take on additional jobs, union leaders said. Starbucks spokesman Trull said the company releases schedules every three weeks based on employee availability and the operational needs of each store. He said the company adjusts hours based on seasonal demand.
Organizers on Wednesday also called for benefits that unionized shops have been denied since last year, including credit card tips, additional training, a wider choice of apron sizes and more flexibility in dress code tattoos and piercings.
Trull said the federal labor law prevents Starbucks from raising wages and extending benefits to unionized workers without a collective bargaining agreement. But federal labor officials said in August Starbucks broke the law by not extending those benefits to workers who had joined the union.
After the first two Buffalo Starbucks locations voted to unionize in December 2021, the company agreed to negotiate. But not a single negotiation session took place between June and October last year. Finally, the parties returned to the negotiating table at the end of October. Since then, the union and company have met for around 85 rounds of negotiations. Still, meetings have often stalled over a disagreement over whether union members who are unable to attend for security or logistical reasons can be remotely observed via zoom, which the company refuses. The union gave in on Wednesday and agreed to turn off zoom cameras.
“Starbucks has made repeated efforts to schedule in-store negotiation sessions for more than 200 represented locations and hopes yesterday’s development means that [the union] is willing to meet in person and in good faith to advance the contract negotiation process for individual deals, as required by law,” Trull said.
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In November, baristas in more than 100 stores went on strike to protest the company’s actions. So far, only the first two unionized stores, both in Buffalo, have received responses from Starbucks on their contract proposals, the union said.
Ruth Milkman, a labor sociologist at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, said that delaying bargaining sessions and setting tough bargaining terms are tactics commonly used by employers trying to fight off unions. Under federal labor laws, companies can often campaign to remove unions with a separate election a year after workers vote to form a union, although Starbucks cannot yet do so due to pending federal investigations. High-turnover companies like Starbucks can prolong the negotiation process, waiting for union supporters to leave and other workers to lose faith in the union, Milkman said. “If it just drags on and ends with no results, that can discourage people.”
The National Labor Relations Board and federal courts have repeatedly found that Starbucks violated its workers’ union rights, including by firing 22 union activists, closing unionized stores and withholding pay increases and benefits for union members. This month, a federal administrative judge accused Starbucks of “egregious and widespread” labor violations in Buffalo.
Next week, Schultz will testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), an outspoken union attorney. Union members are giddy watching.
“I want [Schultz] Taking responsibility for all the things that have happened to people who just want a union in their workplace,” said Leli. “Many partners lost their jobs even though they didn’t have to. And I want him to tell us why. Why? Why don’t you want the union?”