Welcome back to closing bell on cheddar news.
Everyone of the union push at the world's biggest coffee chain continuing to grow
Maurice does that a Seattle.
Starbucks unanimously voting to former union becoming
the seventh Starbucks location to do so
at the union movement for Starbucks.
The latest challenge for incoming ceo Howard Schultz.
Um,
he's coming in of course on an interim basis after
formally in a past life running this company as well.
Joining me now is john Logan director of labor
and employment studies at SAN Francisco State University,
john it's good to see you.
I know it does seem like we're seeing more union victories,
of course around the country, galvanizing more Starbucks employees to organize.
Do we know how many workers this will impact?
Well, Starbucks has about 300,000 workers in the United States.
The individual stores of course are very small
um typically between 20 and 30 employees,
but over 150 stores have now filed for union elections
and it's really spread much faster
than I think Starbucks management ever imagined that it would.
Um The latest victory, as you said,
was in Starbucks hometown of Seattle Washington.
And Starbucks is the company was very closely associated with, with,
with Seattle and it did not win a single vote in that election.
The fourth,
It was a small bargaining unit, but it was 9-0,
so the company did not win a single vote.
It also lost very heavily in the previous election in Mesa Arizona.
And in the next 4-6 weeks, it's going to be facing dozens of more elections.
And
so what it means, I think is not primarily about the numbers of new members.
Uh you know, even if the union were to win 100 stores,
it really wouldn't mean much in terms of the depth of the crisis of organized
labor and how much unions have declined over the past three or four decades.
But it could be the biggest boost in terms
of creating energy and enthusiasm around the issue.
And of course,
we even saw the former Ceo Starbucks kevin johnson publicly voiced via the media,
um,
his opposition to unionization at some of these
locations ahead of that Buffalo unionization effort.
Of course,
workers want to be protected.
The issue in the buffalo location is that mobile orders they had sighted had gotten
so out of control at the Starbucks locations that they simply couldn't keep up.
How important is it for these workers via a union to be
able to voice their grievances without the fear of getting fired.
Yeah, the fear is a very big part of the campaign.
I think, you know, fear and the sense of futility that, you know,
even if you brought to the union,
you won't get what you want or the two central components of, of Starbucks campaign,
fear of retaliation, fear of losing one's jobs, fear of stores closing,
fear that individually and collectively,
workers will be better or worse off if a union comes in.
But I think what we've seen is that these Starbucks workers are
overwhelmingly young workers have been through two years of a pandemic,
would have been, as you said,
working under incredibly stressful conditions because of the mobile orders,
because of safety precautions during covid,
because of uncertainty about stores remaining open.
I actually think that the a lot of the fear factor has disappeared.
And
you know,
if you look at the traditional anti union strategies that Starbucks is using,
forcing them to attend these captive audience meetings,
bombarding them with fearmongering text messages and all of the rest of it.
It doesn't quite so far, at least,
it does not quite seem to be having the
same impact as perhaps we've always come to expect.
So, you know,
when you have a campaign like this and
you have an employer like Starbucks is very determined
to defeat the union campaign
and has huge resources to use in its anti union campaign,
uh you kind of expect the campaign will
probably anti union campaign will probably win out.
But that's not what's happening here.
And I do think it seems to be because it's
really based on some self organization amongst the workers,
they're talking to each other.
And then once the story becomes unionized,
they're reaching out to neighboring stores and they're talking
to workers in other parts of the country.
And so it's taking on a life of its own.
And as you said, you know, they feel they're not being treated with respect,
They're not being treated fairly.
And now they view
the union and collective bargaining and getting a seat at the
bargaining table as the best way of achieving those goals.
And those are not easy things for Starbucks to, to
I have another question for you, john, um,
we're seeing this unionization push impact other companies,
not just Starbucks of course, especially in the midst of the pandemic
workers trying to state their rights and get more
rights and protection and what's been to extremely challenging.
Um, and just strange years to be quite frank on the coronavirus.
I know to Amazon warehouses, for instance, here in Staten Island
in New York, one of the five boroughs
pushing to unionize and they're gonna hold votes in
the next Union votes in the next month.
Um, this would impact a lot of employees. 9000, of course Amazon is a huge employer.
But how closely do you think these union votes will be watched? And do you think
that we might see some success in unionization efforts in Staten Island?
Right, Well, there's two union elections next week is, you know,
one Staten Island and one in Bessemer in Alabama,
which is a rerun election from an election
that was overturned because of amazon's unfair,
unlawful practices.
Last time,
I think the best summer result will be very close and there's a possibility
that the union could win their Staten Island is more of a long shot.
Uh, it's a much newer campaign. It's a more unconventional campaign,
is not affiliated with. Um, it's an independent labor union.
There's lots of unusual and unconventional tactics
that have been used in the campaign,
but it's still done remarkably well given all of the, you know,
the things that amazon has done in order to try to stop the campaign.
So I think it's less likely that the union will win in Staten Island.
But even if it does not,
I do think that labor activism at amazon will not
only continue after these elections regardless of the outcome,
but will actually increase now.
Clearly, if any of the unions want including investment,
that would give a huge, huge boost to the union campaign nationally.
But I think what you see at best summer and you
see in Staten Island is that there's a very powerful demand amongst
amazon workers for an independent voice so that they can improve
working conditions within the warehouses and I think that will continue.
Okay, I will be following it closely here on cheddar news, as we always do.
John Logan. We appreciate the time.
JohN is the director of labor and
Employment studies at SAN Francisco State University