For a long while, it looked like Starbucks and its workers would never make any progress on a contract.
It has been more than two years since the Elmwood Avenue store formed a union, and there is still no contract. But things changed in February, when the coffee giant agreed to negotiate a “foundational framework” for bargaining with its more than 400 union-backed stores.
Starbucks workers protest outside the Starbucks on Delaware Avenue and Chippewa Street in Buffalo in 2023. Protests and boycotts had a negative impact on the brand and its stock prices.
So, how did workers get there? They went the legal route, filing so many labor charges that they led to more than 100 violations being cited by the National Labor Relations Board.
But they also did it by engaging as many facets of the community as they could, including faith leaders, university students, local politicians and social justice groups – and continuing to steadily organize stores around the country.
Those external forces put pressure on socially minded investors, and on new CEO Laxman Narasimhan, who suggested that protests and boycotts were having a negative impact on the brand and its stock prices.
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Even multiple wins at the NLRB level didn’t move the needle as much as pressure from the community, because the legal process moves too slowly, workers said.
“Everything comes after the fact or far too late for the workers that have been harmed by these corporations, or the repercussions for the corporations are a slap on the wrist,” said Michelle Eisen – a Starbucks worker who organized the Elmwood Avenue store and is credited with kicking off the wave of Starbucks unionization across the country – at a recent panel on labor organizing.
Those community partnerships helped Workers United run three labor candidates for Starbucks board seats, pressure colleges to get rid of Starbucks on campuses, mount global boycotts and apply legislative pressure on laws affecting business – all steps that had Starbucks fearing for its bottom line, workers said.
Autumn Rosenthal, 9, cheers during a news conference outside Buffalo General Medical Center in Buffalo on Aug. 18, 2022. Local union backed Starbucks workers in their efforts to win a labor contract.
“We didn’t do it alone. It was a multifaceted, multilevel attack, really,” Eisen said. “The reality is, we all are working together for a common goal, and in this case, it was to get to the bargaining table in a real way.”
To go more than two years without agreeing to a single contract at any Starbucks location is a very long time compared to other labor fights. Dragging things out is a known tactic companies use, especially in industries with high turnover, where new workers continuously need to be won to labor’s side of the argument. The longer an employer can go without a contract, the more workers may begin to question whether the fight is really worth it.
Workers enlisted customers and members of the community to show their support, highlighting their fight for wage increases, better working conditions, better scheduling and other issues; and eventually calling for boycotts. Starbucks Workers United teamed up with other groups, including other unions, to lend their support and expertise.
“All sorts of workers unions, SEIU being one of them, came on to help us in a lot of ways, financial being a huge one because (Starbucks) is a company that literally pulls in a million plus dollars an hour just in the United States. It just has an endless amount of resources,” Eisen said.
They also aligned with the Strategic Organizing Center, a coalition of the Service Employees International Union, Communications Workers of America and United Farmworkers of America, which has worked on such campaigns as the “fight for $15” seeking a $15 minimum wage for fast-food workers.
The SOC came up with a plan to run three labor candidates to sit on Starbucks’ board of directors. The candidates withdrew before a vote ever took place after Starbucks agreed to work toward reaching a contract agreement.
Workers also aligned themselves with college and university students. Within 24 hours of launching their school campaign, workers at 21 college Starbucks locations had filed for a union vote.
“We worked with universities and student organizations who wanted to kick their butts off their campuses,” Eisen said. “Students were holding protests, leafletting, picketing and going to the university saying, ‘We don’t want you to serve a product on this campus that is mistreating its workers.’ “
Workers United also applied legislative pressure, working to change a law affecting gift cards that could have cost Starbucks millions of dollars per year in Washington State, where Starbucks is headquartered.
A law there used to apply unspent gift card money to community programs, but Starbucks and other companies pushed for – and won – a change that instead returned those unspent funds to the store that issued the gift card. Workers engaged community groups and politicians lobbying to change that law back.
The measure died in committee. If it had gone through, it would have cost Starbucks more than $200 million in revenue.
“What was the tipping point? We’re not going to know and they’re never going to tell us,” Eisen said. “But we can look back and say, ‘OK, we hit them here, here, here and here.’ “
Such collaborative approaches are crucial for successful labor organizing, said Kathleen Mulligan, director of labor leadership programs at the Worker Institute.
“When unions and community organizations are not on the same page, it’s a gift to the corporate agenda,” she said.
Grace Bogdanove, the Western New York Nursing Home Division vice president for 1199SEIU, United Healthcare Workers East, agreed.
“In the Buffalo area, you don’t have the density that you have in New York City to rely on,” she said. “And so we, and I think it’s a great thing, begin to develop relationships with community organizations and partners.”
It is an approach that unions have embraced beyond the Starbucks campaign.
Labor union 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East and the employer RCA Healthcare Management/Absolut Care reached terms on a two-year tentative agreement earlier this month that prevented a strike of more than 300 workers at four Western New York nursing homes.
“When I am going to a group of members and their union representative, they’re not going to just trust me right off the bat. I’m going to have to show them that I will show up for them every single day and fight for them and be honest about what I can do,” Bogdanove said. “And I take that same approach to building community relationships.”
Organizations begin taking on each other’s causes when they can see how issues affect their own members, as well, she said. For example, when workers can see how climate change issues might affect their jobs, and environmental activists can see how employer practices affect the climate.
Enlisting faith leaders is also crucial, Bogdanove said, as it was in its fight for Medicaid reform, working with NAACP Buffalo president Rev. Mark Blue.
Blue did everything from writing op-eds about the issue to leading community forums to discuss the inequities that were affecting people of color as a result of Medicaid shortfalls.
“The governor’s office responded to that more than they responded to a health care union,” Bogdanove said.
In the fight to increase Medicaid funding, SEIU1199 even joined forces with employers.
“Because this was a funding fight, right? Recognizing that Medicaid money in your state doesn’t cover the cost of actually providing care and recognizing that that’s a barrier at the bargaining table to getting the wages and benefits that our members need in order to live healthy lives and have a long-standing career in health care,” she said.