The staffs of three more Starbucks units have voted to unionize, raising the number of stores with representation by Starbucks Workers United to six.
Results of the three separate elections were announced as the number of other Starbucks stores looking to organize climbed to 132, according to a running tally maintained by More Perfect Union, a labor advocacy group.
The tally was zero before workers at three stores in Buffalo, N.Y., alerted Starbucks management last August that they intended to organize. Leaders of the drive said they wanted to have more influence on the operation of their units and the strategic direction of the brand.
The organizing effort was successful at two of the three Buffalo units. A store in Mesa, Ariz., subsequently became the third branch to opt for collective bargaining.
The three additional unionized stores are also in Buffalo. The votes at all three were close. At one, the union prevailed by a single vote, 8-7. The margin of victory was three votes at the two other units, each with a tally of 15-12.
“Our mission is to aid in making Starbucks the company that we all want it to be,” Rachel Cohen, a shift supervisor at one of the newly unionized store, said in a statement.
The votes at those stores were held weeks ago, but the ballots were impounded on Feb. 23 because Starbucks contested the election. It argued that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the regulatory agency that monitors union voting, was wrong to convene a separate election at each of the units instead of holding a combined vote.
The coffee giant has contended in each of the three cities where units have organized that the balloting should have been expanded to include the staffs of more stores, since workers can float from unit to unit. The NLRB has rejected that argument.
The six unionized stores and the 132 looking to organize still represent an infinitesimal part of Starbucks’ domestic operations. The company operates more than 9,000 stores in the U.S., with nearly another 6,000 run by licensees.
Starbucks Workers United is a splinter of Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.
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