The union behind the drive to organize Starbucks announced Monday that baristas at 15 more stores have asked federal regulators to schedule a vote in their units on being represented by the affiliate of Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
A 16th unit, in Philadelphia, subsequently added its name to the list of Starbucks stores that have petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to okay a union election. The late addition raised the number of cafes awaiting an okay on holding a union vote to about 54. Those branches are located across 19 states.
The units seeking an election are in addition to the two stores, both in Buffalo, N.Y., that have already formed local chapters of Starbucks Workers United. The upstart union is an affiliate of Workers United, which in turn is part of SEIU.
Those two stores commenced negotiations yesterday of a new labor contract with Starbucks. Workers United said it announced the 15 additional requests for union votes to commemorate the start of the collective bargaining.
The announcement read more like a celebration of Workers United’s penetration of Starbucks than a straightforward update. The near-simultaneous filings of 15 union vote requests marks a significant acceleration of the unit-by-unit spread of SWU. Employees of the organized Buffalo stores say they’ve been inundated with requests from fellow baristas elsewhere about how to organize. But the petitions had been coming at roughly a rate of five a week.
It noted that workers at a store in Mesa, Ariz., are awaiting the outcome of their election. Meanwhile, ballots were mailed starting yesterday to workers at three Buffalo stores. The results of those three separate votes are scheduled to be revealed on Feb. 23.
Still, elections have been held at only four units to date, including the Mesa store. The staff of one unit, in Buffalo, voted against being represented by SWU.
Starbucks has remained largely mum during the SEIU’s campaign. Its standard response has been to seek a union vote for a whole market rather than for a single unit. But it has yet to convince the NLRB to broaden the balloting.
The SWU has declined to speak with Restaurant Business about its efforts.
The group has maintained that it is only loosely affiliated with Workers United and its parent, SEIU. But workers have acknowledged that Workers United has paid their legal expenses during the organization effort.
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