Yahoo Finance Live assesses the slowing rate of Starbucks store employees filing for unionization in late 2022 while store representatives continue bargaining with employees across the country.

Video Transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: All right, well, shifting gears now to Starbucks. Their cafes hoping to join the Starbucks Workers United labor union slowed considerably this fall. Now, just 12 stores actually filed petitions for representation last month. That's down from a high of 71 in March, according to the National Labor Relations Board. Now, since the first stores voted in Buffalo, New York late last year, the board has certified unions in 243 of the company's 9,000 stores across the country. Last week, Starbucks entered into bargaining processes with 41 unionized cafes and has proposed dates for another 43.

Now, the coffee giant has responded in the months since, offering new benefits to non-union stores, including wage increases and operational and equipment improvements, some of the things that they had been calling for. It does make sense that if they're investing these hundreds of millions of dollars to make conditions better and make pay better as well. It's no surprise, then, that we're seeing this sort of slowdown if some of the workers are actually getting some of the benefits that they've been asking for, Dave.

DAVE BRIGGS: Yeah, you mentioned that September number. The number in the month of August was the smallest to date under this unionization push, just 8. And they have suffered 50 losses that have gone largely unreported. Strange connection I'm going to make here, but bear with me, Rachelle. Remember what happened with LIV Golf? They came on the scene. They really rattled the entire sports world. What happened?

Well, the PGA adjusted. They said, OK, we're going to have to up our pay. We're going to have to up our game. We're going to have to add new tournaments. We're going to really change the economic model for the players. And it largely worked, and it largely quieted all the effort. All the gains from LIV, really, I think, squashed.

So I think you see a similar effect here with Starbucks. The unionization effort push was, ultimately, in the end, helpful for these thousands of employees across the country because Starbucks had to respond. They had to do something to improve the conditions, and to your point, the working, the pay, the wages. So they raised the boat, you know. So I think in the end, this was a win, even if unionization continues to die down across the country.

The other factor here to consider is, of course, when we feel like we might be entering a recession. With inflation so high, I think you're getting some people eager to hang on to a job, and at least, bear down for the moment.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: And it does also show that shift from Starbucks because at first, we saw a lot of-- perhaps a lot of these employees wondering if their store was going to close if they complained. So they tried the stick method. So it's interesting that now they're going with the carrot method. That seems to be much more effective than, obviously, some of the threats of potentially people losing their jobs or having their stores closed to fix some of these issues.

DAVE BRIGGS: Yeah, you do hear some say there was a bit of a chilling effect by some of those moves, closing some of those stores that were unsafe, also unionized, but looks to be a quieting movement.