The unionization wave sweeping Starbucks just hit home.
The first vote to unionize in a Seattle store just happened, and it was unanimous.
The store, known as Broadway and Denny after the intersection it sits on, is just a 10-minute drive from the company’s headquarters in Seattle’s SoDo neighborhood. It filed its petition for an election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Dec. 20, when the chain’s unionization campaign began to grow in momentum following victories in Buffalo.
A regional field examiner from the NLRB counted nine pro-union ballots and set aside one challenged ballot.
“We are so excited to win our union unanimously and for what this means for the national movement,” said shift supervisor Sydney Durkin, 26, in a statement provided to Coins2Day. Durkin has been with the company for six years.
Broadway and Denny is the seventh Starbucks store to unionize, following locations in Buffalo and Mesa, Ariz.
“We are listening and learning from the partners in these stores as we always do across the country. From the beginning, we’ve been clear in our belief that we are better together as partners, without a union between us, and that conviction has not changed,” said a Starbucks spokesperson in a statement provided to Coins2Day following the vote.
Today’s election is the first to be held following Howard Schultz’s announcement that he would return for his third stint as CEO, vowing to rebuild relations with baristas. The company expects to find a full-time replacement for outgoing CEO Kevin Johnson by the fall, but some analysts said Schultz’s return was really about stemming the momentum of what is now a national union drive at his company.
Schultz joined the company in 1982 as its director of retail operations and marketing. He served as CEO from 1987 to 2000 and returned amid the turmoil of the Great Financial Crisis for a second stint, from 2008 to 2017, after which Johnson stepped in.
Schultz is taking the reins of the company as it faces criticism for how it has handled efforts by workers across the country to unionize. Last week, a coalition of investors urged Johnson and chairwoman Mellody Hobson in an open letter to take a neutral stance toward unionization efforts as opposed to its prior anti-union stance, citing reputational risks and growing public support for unions.
“We made some mistakes here. We didn’t listen, and we need to do that,” said Hobson in a conversation with CNBC last week.
In addition to the Broadway and Denny store, six other locations in Seattle have filed petitions for union elections, including its flagship Reserve Roastery. Workers at over 150 locations across 27 states have filed petitions for elections.
“Working in the food service industry is a really, really hard job, a harder job than it has any right to be,” said barista and organizer Rachel Ybarra, 22, during a press conference following the vote. “We want to help everyone unionize everywhere, forever.”
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