How workers say they brought Starbucks to the negotiating table

It’s been more than two years since the Elmwood Avenue store formed a union, and there’s still no contract. But that changed in February, when the coffee giant agreed to negotiate a “basic framework” for bargaining with its more than 400 union-backed stores.

How did the workers get here? They took the legal route, filing so many labor complaints that they resulted in more than 100 findings of violations by the National Labor Relations Board.

But they’ve also done it by involving as many facets of the community as possible, including faith leaders, college students, local politicians and social justice groups — and by continuing to regularly organize stores across the country.

These external forces have put pressure on socially conscious investors and new CEO Laxman Narasimhan, who has suggested that the protests and boycotts are negatively impacting the brand and its stock price.

Even multiple victories at the NLRB have not moved the needle as much as community pressure, because the legal process is moving too slowly, workers said.

“Everything comes after the fact or too late for the workers who have been harmed by these companies, or the repercussions for the companies are a slap on the wrist,” Michelle Eisen — a Starbucks worker who organized the Elmwood Avenue store and is credited with kicking off the nationwide Starbucks unionization wave — said at a recent panel on labor organizing.

These community partnerships have helped Workers United run three union candidates for Starbucks board seats, pressure universities to get rid of Starbucks on campus, organize global boycotts and exert legislative pressure on laws affecting the companies — all moves that have left Starbucks concerned about its bottom line, workers said.

“We didn’t act alone. This was really a multi-layered, multi-faceted attack,” Eisen said. “The reality is that we’re all working together for a common goal, and in this case, it was getting to the negotiating table in a meaningful way.”

Going more than two years without a signed contract at a Starbucks location is a very long time compared to other labor disputes. Dragging out the situation is a well-known corporate tactic, especially in industries with high turnover, where new workers must constantly be convinced to join the unions’ cause. The longer an employer can go without a contract, the more workers may begin to wonder whether the fight is really worth it.

Workers mobilized customers and community members to show their support, highlighting their fight for wage increases, better working conditions, better hours, and other issues, and eventually called for a boycott. Starbucks Workers United joined forces with other groups, including other unions, to provide support and expertise.

“A lot of labor unions, including SEIU, have helped us in a number of ways, including financially, because Starbucks is a company that literally makes over a million dollars an hour in the United States alone. They have an infinite amount of resources,” Eisen said.

They also aligned with the Strategic Organizing Center, a coalition of the Service Employees International Union, the Communications Workers of America and the United Farmworkers of America, which has worked on campaigns such as the “Fight for $15” to win a $15 minimum wage for fast food workers.

The SOC had proposed running three union candidates for the Starbucks board. The candidates withdrew before a vote could even be held, with Starbucks agreeing to work toward a contract agreement.

Workers also rallied with college and university students. Within 24 hours of launching their school campaign, employees at 21 university Starbucks locations called for a union vote.

“We worked with universities and student organizations that wanted to kick them off their campuses,” Eisen said. “Students held protests, handed out leaflets, picketed, and went to the university and said, ‘We don’t want you serving a product on this campus that mistreats its workers.’”

Workers United also lobbied legislatively, working to change a law affecting gift cards that could have cost Starbucks millions of dollars a year in Washington state, where Starbucks is headquartered.

A law once required that unspent gift card money be used for community programs, but Starbucks and other companies lobbied and won to have the unspent funds returned to the store that issued the gift card. Workers enlisted the help of community groups and politicians to lobby for the law to be reinstated.

The measure was defeated in committee. If passed, it would have cost Starbucks more than $200 million in revenue.

“What was the tipping point? We’re not going to know and they’re never going to tell us,” Eisen said. “But we can look back and say, ‘OK, we hit them here, here, here and here.’”