Starbucks employees contributed to the momentum of a union campaign that went public in late August that has turned decades of union-free labor in the company’s own stores.
Workers at six New York state stores voted to unionize Thursday and Friday, according to the National Labor Relations Board, bringing the total number of company-owned stores where workers unionized to 16. also led by a wide margin at a Kansas store whose votes were counted Friday, but the number of contested ballots leaves the outcome officially in doubt until their status can be resolved.
The union has so far lost only one election, but is formally debating the outcome.
Since the union took its first two wins in elections that closed in December, employees at more than 175 other stores in at least 25 states have filed for union elections, of about 9,000 company-owned stores in the United States. Next week, the labor council will count the ballots in at least three more shops.
The organizational success at Starbucks appears to reflect a growing worker interest in unions, including efforts at Amazon, where workers voted last week to unify a union in Staten Island by a significant margin.
On Wednesday, the Labor Council’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, announced that union election applications had risen more than 50 percent in the past six months from the same period a year earlier. Ms Abruzzo expressed concern that funding and staffing shortages were making it difficult for the agency to keep up with activity, saying in a statement that the board “needs a significant increase in funds to fully implement the agency’s mission statement.” feed.”
Starbucks has tried to convince employees not to join unions by holding anti-union meetings with employees and talks between managers and individual employees, but some employees say the meetings have only fueled their support for organizing.
In some cases, Starbucks has also sent a number of senior officials to out-of-town stores, a move the company says is intended to address operational issues such as staffing and training, but which some union supporters find intimidating.
The union accuses Starbucks of seeking to cut hours nationally as a way to encourage old employees to leave the company and replace them with employees who are more skeptical of unions. And the union says Starbucks has retaliated against workers who support the union by punishing or firing them. Last month, the labor council filed a formal complaint against Starbucks over retaliation against two Arizona employees, a move it is taking after it found merit in allegations against employers or unions.
The company has denied cutting hours to encourage employees to leave, saying it is scheduling employees in response to customer demand, and has dismissed allegations of anti-union activity.
As the union campaign gained momentum in March, the company announced that Kevin Johnson, who had been CEO since 2017, would be replaced on an interim basis by Howard Schultz, who had led the company twice before and remained one of its largest investors. .
Some investors Mr. Johnson had warned that the company’s anti-union tactics could damage his reputation, expressing optimism that the leadership change could lead to a shift in Starbucks’ attitude toward the union. But the company soon announced it would not agree to remain neutral in union elections as the union had requested, dampening those hopes.
On Monday, the same day Mr. Schultz returned as chief executive, the company fired Laila Dalton, one of two Arizona employees whose NLRB had accused Starbucks of retaliating against March. The company said Ms Dalton had violated company rules by recording colleagues’ conversations without their permission.
“The importance of a union partner does not exempt them from the standards we have always held,” Reggie Borges, a company spokesperson, said in a statement, using the company’s term for an employee.
