How do you force a multibillion-dollar corporation to bargain in good faith with its workers? That’s a question many in the US labor movement have been asking over the past few years as workers launched ambitious organizing drives at some of the most recognizable brand names in the country — Starbucks, Amazon, and Trader Joe’s foremost among them — and found themselves stonewalled by management who stubbornly refused to stop fighting their newly organized unions and negotiate contracts.

Now, just over three years since baristas launched their union drive at a Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, we have at least one version of an answer. On Tuesday, Starbucks Workers United (SWU), the fiercely independent Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate, announced a breakthrough in securing first contracts at the nearly four hundred stores that have unionized.

“Workers United and Starbucks have agreed to begin discussions on a foundational framework to achieve collective bargaining agreements for represented stores and partners, the resolution of litigation between the union and the company, and a fair process for workers to organize,” the union said in a statement.