Seattle Starbucks Workers Vote to Form Union –

A campaign continued to consolidate Starbucks stores in the coffee chain’s hometown, where the union won the election Tuesday at a Seattle store.

Workers at a store in Seattle’s Capitol Hill area have unitedly supported Workers United, which has been organizing lawyers across the country since last year. The 9-0 win in the campaign brought the total number of Starbucks stores in the syndicate to seven, including five in New York and one in Arizona.

Workers have petitioned for union elections in more than 140 stores in 27 states, which are expected to raise their ranks in the coming weeks. So far the union has lost only one of eight elections.

Seattle store attorney Rachel Ibarra said a strong win in the company’s backyard after counting the votes could encourage workers elsewhere to form a union.

“I know this will make it safer for other stores to contact us,” Ibarra said.

A Starbucks spokesman said in an email that “We still believe in Starbucks ’direct relationship with our partners, but will continue to respect it [legal] The process. ”

The union’s campaign, known as Starbucks Workers United, runs stores nationwide, starting in New York’s Buffalo area. About 13 employees will be part of the Seattle store’s transaction department, although there are about three dozen other locations.

Starbucks has approximately 9,000 company-owned stores in the United States, all of which did not merge until last year. The company opposes the union campaign, in which executives organize meetings with workers and urge them to vote “no”. The union accused Starbucks of unfair labor practices, arguing the company retaliated against union organizers.

The National Council on Labor, which considers collective bargaining in the private sector, reviewed union claims in Arizona and said Starbucks identified one pro-union couple, one of whom lost his job. Starbucks has denied the allegations.

Starbucks announced last week that its longtime leader, Howard Schultz, would return to lead the company to replace current CEO Kevin Johnson. Schultz will occupy a critical stage in the union attempt.

“We need to take a good look at how we work as a company and as a community of partners,” he said. Message Starbucks employees last week.

Schultz has worked at Starbucks unions in the past. Many of the chain’s original stores and its roastery in the Seattle area were represented by mergers in the 1980s. The union was eventually abolished and no longer represented these workers in the early 1990s, a development Schultz wrote about in his memoirs.

Under Schultz, the company successfully addressed an organized effort of workers in the global industry that began in the early 2000s.

But the ongoing campaign has already reaped consecutive successes and the bartenders promise there will be even more.

Sydney Durkin, an employee of a newly merged store in Seattle, warned Tuesday that Schultz is fighting a “losing battle” if he hopes to slow the organization’s campaign.

“If he comes in and expects his old tactics to work, he’ll find a new reality,” Durkin said.