How the Starbucks Worker Organizing Model Can Accelerate Unionization Across the Country
A Starbucks union drive is sweeping across the country. In an industry that has been all but impossible to unionize, these baristas have created an organizing model that can be replicated at similar corporate chains everywhere.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez meets with Starbucks Workers United members who are working to unionize their store in Astoria, Queens, New York, on March 27, 2022. (Starbucks Astoria Blvd / Twitter)
The Starbucks Workers United campaign, having secured National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election victories at six out of seven stores, with well over 150 stores filing for an NLRB election as of last week, is one of the most invigorating labor campaigns in recent US history.
The Starbucks workers currently spearheading the SB Workers United drive have charted a way forward for organizing corporate chain stores. Their strategy should be carefully studied and implemented across other corporate chains and adjusted according to context.
The story of SB Workers United begins at the Genesee Street Starbucks near the Buffalo airport in 2019, when some Starbucks workers, some of them inspired by the Bernie Sanders campaign and affiliated with socialist organizations, began discussing the possibility of unionization.
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