In December 2021, workers at a Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York, voted to unionize, becoming the coffee chain’s first union store. Two years later, more than 380 of its 9,000 stories have unionized—but none of them have yet reached a first contract with the company. And despite Starbucks’ recent comments that it wants to resume negotiations, experts say the union’s fight for its first contract will continue through 2024.
The process of unionizing can take months, but that’s only the beginning. After workers hold a union election, they then have to negotiate a contract with the company. Getting that first contract can take years. And while union activity is legally protected and companies are required to bargain “in good faith” over employment conditions, there’s nothing in U.S. labor law that mandates a company actually reach an agreement with a union.
A 2018 study found that 63% of unions failed to reach a first contract within one year of winning their election; after two years, 43% of unions still had no contract. “With an employer who’s intent on not reaching an agreement with you, and which has the resources such as Starbucks does, it’s very difficult for the employees to get the employer to agree,” says Cathy Creighton, director of Cornell University’s ILR Buffalo Co-Lab, an extension of Cornell’s School of Industrial Labor Relations.
Employers may drag their feet by refusing to respond to proposals or even committing unfair labor practices that lead to litigation, delaying the bargaining process. Workers, meanwhile, try to use whatever leverage they can—like going on strike—to put pressure on a company to come to the bargaining table. In some states and in some sectors, like for New York State police officers, workers can go into “interest arbitration” if they can’t reach an agreement, meaning an impartial arbitrator helps resolve the dispute. The Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or the PRO Act, a labor bill currently pending in Congress, would allow for interest arbitration for any union’s first contract, though labor experts don’t expect Congress to pass the bill.
When it comes to Starbucks, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and union workers say the company has failed to bargain in good faith. (Most workers are unionizing through Starbucks Workers United, a part of Workers United, which is an affiliate of Service Employees International Union). Starbucks has refused to conduct “hybrid” bargaining sessions that allow videoconferencing, which the NLRB said was illegal. (The company claimed that the union isn’t bargaining in good faith because it wants workers to be able to access bargaining sessions remotely.)
There were some lengthy bargaining sessions with Workers United for individual stores between March and June 2023, but workers say that in earlier sessions, company executives walked out after mere minutes. In April, The NLRB General Counsel filed a complaint against Starbucks, claiming the company has refused to negotiate in good faith with more than 100 stores; the issue is currently in litigation. Starbucks says it has had productive negotiations with the Teamsters, who represent workers at one Starbucks near Pittsburgh, but that union also recently accused the company of bargaining in bad faith.
Workers have been organizing store by store, with individual union elections at each location. Starbucks initially argued that multiple stores should take their union votes together by region, though the labor board disagreed. Now, the company is attempting to bargain a contract for each individual store, which union members say is a way to drag out the bargaining process; they’d prefer one contract, as they say the same issues exist at every Starbucks location.
Last week, Starbucks sent a letter to the president of Workers United, in which it said it would like to resume contract negotiations. While that may seem like a turning point in the labor fight, Creighton says it’s more of a publicity stunt—in part a response to the growing public support for unions—than a sincere sign to its workers. One example that the letter is “disingenuous,” she says, is that the bargaining conditions Starbucks would like the union to agree to include that “we will conduct sessions without video or audio feeds or recordings.” That means the company put the same limitations on bargaining sessions that the union has already fought, and which are part of an open NLRB case.
“We believe that in-person bargaining is not only required by federal law, but it will achieve the best outcomes for our partners,” Starbucks spokesperson Andrew Trull said in an email. “Further, we maintain that our approach to good faith bargaining has been consistent with decades of NLRB precedent—and that the [NLRB] General Counsel’s attempts to disregard this precedent are inappropriate.” Starbucks says that allowing hybrid negotiations “is tantamount to having bargaining sessions recorded,” and that it does not want to allow recordings in order to “protect the partners.”
Jaysin Saxton, a Starbucks shift supervisor who helped organize his store in Georgia, says the company’s behavior is at odds with what its workers want. “What’s taking so long is Starbucks believes that it doesn’t need or wants a union, which they’re entitled to have that opinion,” he says. “But their workers believe they need a union. So if you’re really about respecting and valuing your partners, your partners are telling you they want a union, so it’s time to start coming to the table and bargaining with them.”
Saxton is hopeful, but also cautious, about Starbucks’ comments that it would like to resume bargaining. To him, it’s more of a sign that the company is feeling pressure from the union, due to recent labor actions like its Red Cup Day strike, and from the public. Other prominent strikes throughout the year, from Hollywood actors to auto workers, may also add pressure.
To Creighton, it’s clear the fight between Starbucks and its union is likely to continue into 2024—at least until more stores organize and the workers have more power. She agrees that the letter is a sign the company is feeling some stress, but to her, it’s more about public perception than worker leverage. “They’re trying to rehabilitate the tarnishing their image is getting,” she says. “It’s all part of the game that they’re playing that they’re being reasonable and the workers are not. Because they’re offering what the union has already said no to, you wonder, who is their message to? And that would lead me to believe this message is actually to the public and not the workers at all.”