On December 9, 2021, workers at a Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, voted to unionize in an NLRB election. In doing so, they became the first of the company’s nearly nine thousand corporate-owned stores across the United States to go union (one additional Buffalo Starbucks union has since been certified; a third Buffalo store narrowly voted against unionization). In a development out of former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s nightmares, their decision inspired thousands of their colleagues, with the movement spreading like wildfire.

Fifty-four stores in nineteen states have now filed for NLRB elections. One location in Mesa, Arizona, just finished voting, with ballots set to be counted on February 16, despite Starbucks’ appeal to block the vote, with the company arguing, as it unsuccessfully did in New York, that a single store is not an appropriate bargaining unit.

The number of unionizing Starbucks locations is ticking up so quickly that it may well have changed by the time you’re reading this article. On the final day of January alone, Workers United, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate that is organizing the Starbucks campaign, announced fifteen new NLRB filings. On that same date, contract negotiations began at the first unionized Buffalo location.