3 California Starbucks Locations Seek Union Amid Nationwide Push

CALIFORNIA — Workers at three California Starbucks locations have announced their intent to form a union, the most recent addition coming this month from Los Angeles.

The California push comes amid a nationwide trend of Starbucks workers organizing to authorize union representation, with some union elections already won.

A Chatsworth store this month became the third in California where workers want a union election; the other two were in Santa Cruz, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

As of Wednesday, workers in 93 stores in 26 states were looking to hold union elections, a number that was growing exponentially day by day, CNN reported reported. With nearly 3,000 Starbucks locations in California, the local movement is expected to grow.

At the Starbucks at Mason Avenue and Lassen Street, 24 of 35 workers turned in union cards, according to Fernando Hernandez, lead organizer with the Western States Regional Joint Board of Workers United, which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union. One more employee was unable to turn in a signed card because of COVID-19, Hernandez said.

The union petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for an election, and union representatives will take part in an NLRB hearing on the petition with Starbucks later this month, Hernandez said.

Many of the workers' key concerns are not pandemic-specific, but Chatsworth Starbucks employees started to reconsider their status at the company at the outset of the pandemic, said Sumeet Sangha, an employee who is on the store's organizing committee.

They began considering a union after they watched Starbucks workers in Buffalo create the first-ever Starbucks union in the nation in December, Sangha said.

"Its not just because of COVID, but I feel like we became more aware of our status within the company because of COVID," Sangha said. She added: "It started going downhill from there. We all started feeling so expendable, especially with COVID, because there wasn't enough protections for us."

In particular, the Chatsworth partners were disappointed by what they perceived as the company prioritizing work over employee health and safety. They felt they weren't properly compensated for picking up extra work and that the company lacked transparency when someone in the workplace tested positive for COVID-19, Sangha said.

Like unionizing Starbucks employees across the country, the Chatsworth partners felt COVID-19 protocol was not being followed properly, Hernandez said.

In response, a Starbucks representative said the company valued its partners' and customers' health and had made many efforts to keep them safe throughout the pandemic. The company representative spoke with Patch on condition of anonymity.

The working conditions are so bad at one of the Santa Cruz locations the store has a 140 percent employee turnover rate, Santa Cruz Starbucks barista Joseph Thomas told The Hill. This is a result of poor training and the company's failure to properly handle the pandemic, Thomas said.

Starbucks would prefer to maintain a direct relationship with its workers, the representative said. The company has been consistent in saying that it preferred not to work with unions acting as a third party, the representative said, arguing that its partners already have a voice and ample access to company managers.

Even so, the company "fully respects" partners' right to organize and will "bargain in good faith" with partners who do unionize, the representative said.

Chatsworth employees don't feel the company's avowed transparency and accessibility was reflected in its managers' actions. Chatsworth employees have expressed their concerns to local managers on multiple occasions, but nothing has changed, Sangha said.

"They're a company that says they value transparency, but as partners we don't really feel like that. And so the whole point of this union was for us to have a voice and to have some say in what goes on in our workplace," Sangha said.

Many local managers have made it clear they do not support the union, Sangha and Hernandez said. Other efforts across the country have faced aggressive anti-union tactics from the company.

Most recently, multiple union organizers in Memphis were fired from Starbucks for violating policies the workers claimed had never been enforced before, The New York Times reported.

The Chatsworth union organizing committee includes workers with diverse backgrounds. One is a minor; some have worked at Starbucks for around seven years, and some are working their first jobs. The committee also included two shift supervisors and trainers, Sangha said.

Sangha and her co-workers love working at Starbucks, which is why they feel it's so important to ensure a career at Starbucks is "built to last and nurture the human spirit," a nod to the company's mission statement, she said.

"The only reason we're unionizing is because we like the company. We want to make sure that this can turn into a career, ... that [people] can build their life with. It's definitely not out of any bad intent. We want to make this company grow, but for that to happen we have to make sure that partners can grow within the company, too," Sangha said.

The Mason and Lassen location was the first in Los Angeles to publicly announce its intent to unionize.

"For us, it's sending a message. Someone has to be the first. I'm really proud of our team, because we are putting actions to our words. We are holding Starbucks accountable, just like Starbucks says they're holding us accountable," Sangha said. She added: "It feels like there's a lot of pressure. There's a lot riding on this, in a way. But at the end of the day, ... we're a community. We're going to stick up for each other."

Many people have shown the Mason and Lassen workers support online and at the store, Sangha said.

"They've been ordering their coffee under 'union strong' and showing that they're standing in solidarity, and it's really nice to see. Some of them aren't even people that are very local, but they took the time out of their days to come by and say that to us, and it really means a lot to us. It's very encouraging."

Other Los Angeles partners have asked the Mason and Lassen location for advice, indicating the local movement will grow, Sangha said.

This article originally appeared on the Across California Patch