US Starbucks Employees Form First Union: What Are Starbucks' Wages and Benefits?

Starbucks' Wage Increases and the Union Drive in America

Just over a month ago, FrontStreet Coffee reported that the American food and beverage industry was facing a "labor shortage" amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In response, Starbucks in the United States proposed a pay raise plan to combat the staffing crunch, hoping to hold on to existing employees by raising wages across the board.

Here's the key point: this is already the third time in two years that Starbucks in America has announced pay and benefit adjustments!

And yet these American Starbucks employees - who have already made their counterparts in China rather envious - still aren't satisfied with the latest raise...

Squeezed by the supply chain crisis and high inflation, American workers are under new pressures, and many hope that forming unions will push companies to improve wages and benefits and secure better conditions.

And yes, it really happened: Starbucks employees in America have formed a union - and it's been approved. On December 9, local time, workers at a Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York, voted 19 to 8 to unionize. It is the first unionized Starbucks in the company's 50-year history. Once formally established, the store will join Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.

Starbucks has long opposed unionization. The company prefers to treat all employees as "partners" rather than parties in a "traditional employment relationship," and believes any issues should be raised directly with the company rather than through a union - direct communication, in its view, serves store development best.

But the employees see it differently - because they feel the company has never shown real sincerity. Pro-union employees say that even before COVID-19, stores were chronically understaffed and equipment went unrepaired for lack of funds. At the time, they wanted Starbucks to invest more in pay, benefits, and store operations, but those requests went largely ignored.

By August of this year, the Buffalo employees had waited long enough. They began petitioning for a union vote, because it would give them a direct channel to negotiate with the company. (Implicit message: you never actually gave your "partners" that direct line of communication.) They added that to change how Starbucks treats its partners, working conditions across the service industry need to improve - and forming a union is their first step.

Once it learned of the campaign, Starbucks spent months urging Buffalo baristas to vote it down. When that seemed to have little effect, the company announced yet another round of wage and benefit increases in November, insisting the decision was not a response to the union drive. That didn't stop the petitioners either, who pushed ahead with the vote in December. On the matter, Starbucks says it doesn't believe unions are necessary but will respect workers' right to organize.

Spurred on by the precedent, three more Starbucks stores in Buffalo and one in Mesa, Arizona, have filed petitions with the Labor Relations Board for their own union votes. For stores that have already voted, formal establishment will take about another week, since the National Labor Relations Board - a federal agency - needs time to certify the results.

When it comes to their wages and benefits, American employees clearly believe that "unity is strength"! Chinese Starbucks employees, meanwhile, can console themselves with their legendary 14-month annual pay... right? (Meanwhile, quietly: we're still envious.)

Image source: Internet

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

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