Mansfield area Starbucks Workers File for Union Election
Walker Lake Baristas join 100+ store national strike on their filing day
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 22, 2023
PRESS CONTACT
Local: MC Floreani, mfloreani@cmrjb.org, (512) 787-7357
National: starbucksmedia@workers-united.org
Ontario, OH – Early Wednesday morning, the hourly workers at Starbucks, located at 2172 Walker Lake Rd, petitioned the local management for union recognition and filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a union representation election. According to The Chicago and Midwest Regional Joint Board (CMRJB) of Workers United (an SEIU affiliate), an overwhelming majority of workers at the store signed union authorization cards.
This shop could become the twelfth unionized Starbucks location in Ohio and is the very first store outside of a city to unionize in the state. These coffee workers are joining the Starbucks Workers United movement that has swept across the country. As of now, workers at the chain have won union representation elections at nearly 300 shops nationwide.
These baristas chose to file on the day of a national strike and join in the pickets to show solidarity with the rest of the unionized Starbucks workers in Ohio. Lizzy Prichard, a shift supervisor at the store, shares her conviction in organizing a store in a part of the country that is isolated from other unionized locations:
“As an assistant store manager, I was ordered to do things that felt unethical and left me with no choice but to step down. As a shift supervisor I am under constant fear for my job if I make a single mistake. Our only way out and to job security is through solidarity. If Howard Schultz or Laxman Narasimhan think this movement is limited to college towns and coastal cities, they’ve got another thing coming. Union Starbucks partners are here to stay.”
Rose Ames, a barista from the store, added:
“We need a better safety net. Our inconstant and capricious management shouldn't be allowed to call all the shots when they have less tenure in the company.”
In a letter sent to executives and local management and signed by a majority of the store’s workers, the staff express their resolve in seeing this fight out to the end:
“We as partners work together as much as we can, but our management is so erratic that they’re circumventing our efforts. We feel that unionizing is a way to bring our particular store in line with the Starbucks values of Respect and Dignity, and serving the customers in the way they want to be served. It’s time for us to actually be Partners. Ohio knows hard times, and us Ohioans may get knocked down seven times, but we get up eight. This is eight. We won’t get knocked down again.”
Across the country, Starbucks workers are organizing with Workers United (SEIU). The CMRJB of Workers United represents approximately 4,000 members in Ohio in a diverse array of industries. Please contact MC Floreani at (512) 787-7357 to arrange Starbucks worker interviews.
###
