Starbucks workers launched their bus tour a block from the Capitol in St. Paul.
Set to embark on a nationwide tour to pressure Starbucks into bargaining in good faith with their union, members of Starbucks Workers United rallied today in St. Paul with labor activists, community supporters and U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, who encouraged the baristas to keep up their fight for a union contract.
“I know firsthand the courage it’s taken to do what you’re doing today, and I salute you for it,” said McCollum, who represents Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District.
Workers at over 300 Starbucks locations nationwide, including six in the Twin Cities, have voted to unionize with the Service Employees (SEIU) affiliate since December 2021. None of them has a contract yet.
In Minnesota, bargaining committees from three stores – including the location at 300 Snelling in St. Paul – have held negotiating sessions, but the company’s representatives walked out of each meeting in less than five minutes, according to union members.
Rather than negotiate with its union, Starbucks has cut hours, closed unionized stores and intimidated workers – all textbook union-busting tactics, Wisconsin barista Charles Poulter said.
“It is my opinion that the Starbucks corporation intends to ignore this union to death,” Poulter said during a press conference outside a coach bus emblazoned with union logos and slogans. “They will slash hours until every union partner is forced to move on. And when they bargain with us, they will not bargain in good faith.”
Rep. Betty McCollum encouraged Starbucks workers to keep up their contract campaign.
Their union has appealed – successfully in most cases – to the National Labor Relations Board to force Starbucks to reinstate fired workers, reopen closed stores and bargain in good faith.
Workers United says 19 of 20 decisions handed down by the NLRB have been favorable for the union, with the agency finding Starbucks has committed 194 labor law violations. Another 77 complaints, encompassing over 1,300 alleged violations, are still pending.
But as the NLRB process plays out, union members are hoping to ramp up public pressure on the corporation with a summer road trip, building solidarity among workers at unionized stores, encouraging others to join and calling out members of Starbucks’ board of directors – like Beth Ford, president and CEO of Arden Hills-based Land O’Lakes Inc.
Minneapolis barista Rev Beeby called Workers United’s bus tour a “new, big counteroffensive” in the contract campaign.
“We’re highlighting the victories we’ve had and the new stores that have organized, and we’re going directly to the board of directors and telling them to negotiate,” Beeby said. “Starbucks is scared of us. They know they’re losing, and they know that once we win a strong contract, even more workers will be inspired to join and organize and exercise their power.”
Locally, union baristas have shut down several stores with short-term strikes, protesting unfair labor practices, the company’s failure to bargain and short staffing in their cafes.
Workers at the 300 Snelling location have been on strike five times since forming a union in April 2022. The St. Anthony location saw picketing June 28 in response to allegations that Starbucks banned some LGBTQ Pride Month decorations.
With the bus tour, dubbed “The Union Is Calling,” Starbucks workers plan to extend those worksite actions to a larger public audience.
“By going on tour, these Starbucks workers are raising the stakes and escalating their fight, and Minnesota’s labor movement stands in solidarity with the thousands of Starbucks workers who are fighting for their right to form a union across the country,” St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson said.
After the kickoff event at the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s offices in St. Paul, Starbucks workers traveled to Land O’Lakes headquarters, where they called on Ford to oppose union busting at Starbucks. Later this morning the bus stopped outside two non-union stores, where union members distributed campaign materials.
The bus leaving from St. Paul will wind its way to Buffalo, NY, where workers made history in forming the first union at a corporate-owned store in the U.S. Another bus tour is scheduled to launch later this week on the west coast, with union members traveling to the company’s headquarters in Seattle.
Supporters can follow the tour online.
Union Advocate 