Defeating Union Busting at Starbucks

In December 2021, a group of baristas at a Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York organized and won a union election, becoming the first group of workers to successfully organize at a corporate-owned Starbucks store in recent history. This victory sparked a movement of Starbucks baristas across the country, who stood up together to fight for fair wages, improved safety and dignity on the job as part of Starbucks Workers United. Thousands of baristas at the coffee giant have successfully organized some 500 stores, despite an egregious and record-shattering anti-union response from the corporation.

In partnership with Starbucks Workers United, we exposed the conflict between the pervasive and massive level of union-busting activity by the global coffee giant with the company’s carefully constructed reputation as a progressive, diverse, worker-centered coffeehouse. We crafted cutting-edge engagements with multiple, varied constituencies – from government regulators and federal and state politicians to Starbucks consumers and company shareholders – to both support organizing workers and challenge the company’s illegal conduct.

Starbucks workers continue to win their union at new stores from coast to coast and more than 10,500 workers are now engaged in bargaining a national framework that will form the basis of first contracts at the company’s stores where workers have voted to form their union.