One year ago today, workers at a Starbucks location on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, New York, voted to unionize. The victory marked a turning point at the company, which had successfully avoided labor organizing at its stores for decades. The vote stood out: in the United States, unionization was at a historic low, and the food service industry is notoriously hostile toward labor.

Few imagined that the US labor movement, at Starbucks and beyond, would grow so much over a single year. Union petitions are up by 57 percent from 2021, and at Starbucks, over six thousand workers have unionized.

Starbucks is the biggest coffeehouse chain in the world, employing around four hundred thousand people globally. The corporation encourages a familial culture in which coworkers are called “partners.”