How Young Workers Are Unionizing Starbucks

Starbucks Workers United is racking up victorious union votes in one branch after another of the iconic American coffee chain. A young California-based worker-organizer explains why this organizing campaign is different.

by Sonali KolhatkarAt only 19 years old, Joe Thompson is one of the youngest lead organizers with Starbucks Workers United (SWU), the umbrella organization at the forefront of one of the most exciting labor successes of the last few years. Thompson, who started working at the coffee chain at age 16, told me in a recent interview, "Starbucks likes to claim it's super-progressive, and a lot of workers there are, but we're the ones actually holding Starbucks accountable to that standard.

" The very first Starbucks location to successfully unionize was in Buffalo, New York, where a vote was held only last December. Since then, dozens more locations have voted to join SWU--whose parent company is Workers United, an affiliate of SEIU--and more than 200 other locations have filed for union elections.

Thompson, who uses they/them pronouns, and who describes their background as "working-class Hispanic," lives in Santa Cruz, California, and works there as a shift supervisor at the first Starbucks in the state to petition for a union. That vote is expected to take place in May, and it will be a bellwether for union organizing at Starbucks cafes across California.

The nation's most populous state has lagged behind New York, Virginia, Massachusetts and Arizona on unionizing efforts at Starbucks primarily because, as per Thompson, California "does have better working conditions than a lot of other states." The statewide minimum wage in California is $15 an hour, which is more than twice the federal minimum wage.

Thompson also cites "better workplace protections" in California compared to other states.The lesson here for anti-union forces is that poor wages and working conditions can prompt union activity.

Unions are needed precisely because pro-corporate politicians have resisted raising the minimum wage and have weakened labor rights for decades.Additionally, workers at California's Starbucks locations "wanted to see what Buffalo could accomplish" before petitioning for a union, said Thompson.

"After watching them win their vote, then we really started to organize."It's no wonder that Starbucks worked so hard to stop organizers from successfully unionizing in Buffalo, flying in external managers and holding captive-audience meetings with CEO and founder...