Starbucks Workers United Announces 7 Union Filings During Annual Shareholder Meeting
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 23, 2023
PRESS CONTACT
starbucksmedia@workers-united.org
Casey Moore, 302-985-1417
BUFFALO — The national campaign to unionize Starbucks continues to grow. Today, during the coffee giant’s annual shareholder meeting, Starbucks spent more than 30 minutes talking about how they listen to workers – despite implementing an aggressive union-busting campaign and failing to bargain with the union in good faith. In response, Starbucks Workers United announced that seven Starbucks stores across the country filed for elections to unionize with the national campaign.
This is the largest uptick in new organizing in a one-week period since the campaign took off in the winter and spring of 2022, signifying a new wave of Starbucks worker organizing.
The stores that filed include:
Westminster, Colorado (144th & I-25)
Elizabethtown, Kentucky (N Dixie Hwy)
Louisville, Kentucky (Central & 3rd)
Riverview, Michigan (Fort & Pennsylvania)
Ontario, Ohio (Walker Lake Rd)
Lincoln City, Oregon (3350 NE Hwy 101)
Walla Walla, Washington (Plaza Way)
Find each store’s letter to new CEO Laxman Narasimhan here.
These workers join the movement of nearly 300 already-unionized stores and 7,500+ union workers fighting for a voice on the job and a real seat at the table. With this new wave of organizing, workers are inviting incoming CEO Laxman Narasimhan to chart a new collaborative path forward with the union.
“After over ten years with Starbucks, I feel like we, the baristas, finally have a voice! By joining Starbucks Workers United, we want it known that our little store on the Oregon Coast stands in solidarity with our partners across the nation, who are simply asking for the ability to negotiate for better wages, benefits, working conditions, and job security,” said Micah Grogan, a partner and organizer at the Lincoln City, Oregon, location.
Lizzy Prichard, a shift supervisor and organizer in Ontario, Ohio, said, “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.”
Starbucks Workers United is the union drive that has taken the labor movement by storm. After a successful first year of the campaign that saw more new unions form in 12 months than any U.S. company in the last 20 years, partners around the country continue to diligently organize new workers, despite Starbucks’ best effort to thwart unionization. The NLRB has issued over 80 official complaints against the Company, encompassing over 1,400 violations and making Starbucks one of the worst violators of federal labor law in history.
###
