As Starbucks Workers Seek a Union, Company Officials Converge on Stores
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/18/business/economy/starbucks-union-buffalo.html
A couple of Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York is making an effort to unionize. In late August, these stores filed for union elections. Around the same time, Starbucks began sending officials out to stores. These officials include managers and top corporate executives from out of town. There has also been an increase in staffing. Those in the unionization effort feel that these actions are a countermeasure to intimidate workers into not voting for a union. The increase of staffing has mostly been teenagers, who are not eligible to vote in the union election. Starbucks claims that these are not intimidation tactics, but instead to fix longstanding problems in the workplace.
Currently, none of the US locations for Starbucks are unionized. If the stores in Buffalo are able to form a union, it will be the first time there is a union for company-owned stores in the United States. In the Unites States, unions have had a brutal history when it comes to corporations. When people first began unionizing, they were brutally put down by hired "tough guys" and even the government. I hope that the stores who want to unionize are able to do so, as I think that unions are an important tool for the everyday worker. This fight for a union is just one of many acts of labor activism currently happening in the US.
2 comments:
Starbucks? .... and unions? that is very interesting to me as you would think a food and beverage industry, especially one that is more up-scale, wouldn't be unionized but here we are. I think unions are good and guarantee job stability as well as wage solidarity, but I don't know if it will work in this certain industry but it shall be interesting to see.
I can see this being a problem for Starbucks in a national sense. While it would likely have a minimal effect with just a few stores, it would have a big impact if this move had a wave effect. Starbucks is known for having decent enough pay and benefits for its employees that other chains can not compete with, so I am sure that a large increase in pay in benefits could easily make the stores less efficient and more expensive to operate.
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