Five Starbucks in Colorado have joined the effort growing across the country to unionize the omnipresent coffee stores with the readily recognizable green signs featuring a two-tailed mermaid.
Two stores in Denver, two in Colorado Springs and one in Superior have filed petitions with the National Labor Relations Board to be represented by Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.
The momentum started in December when employees at a Buffalo, N.Y., Starbucks voted for a union. Five more stores — four in Buffalo and one in Mesa, Ariz. — have voted to form unions. About 130 stores in 26 states have filed with the NLRB to hold elections, according to Workers United.
Starbucks, based in Seattle, owns about 9,000 stores nationwide.
A crowd of more 70 than gathered Friday morning outside a Denver Starbucks store on East Colfax Avenue to support employees who walked out in protest of what they said are unfair labor practices. Workers United has filed a complaint saying two workers claim the company has retaliated against them for supporting a union.
“I personally was given a final written warning after never being written up in almost three years with this company,” said Michaela Sellaro, a shift supervisor at the store that employs about 25.
Sellaro believes she is being targeted after speaking at an NLRB hearing. “Honestly, I come into work each and every day expecting to have a separation conversation with my leadership,” said Sellaro, who joined others carrying signs and chanting at the protest.
Vanessa Casto Lopez said the company has been cutting hours at the store. “Baristas signed on to get a certain amount and they’re just not meeting those hours. They’re struggling and having to find different jobs.”
A Starbucks spokeswoman said Monday claims of cutting hours and targeting employees because of union organizing “are categorically false.”
At hearings around the country, Starbucks has challenged proposed store-by-store elections, pushing instead for districtwide votes, National Public Radio reported. So far, the NLRB has approved voting by individual locations.
Carlos Ginard, an assistant manager with the regional Workers United, sees Starbucks’ challenges as delaying tactics.
“The main reason they do it is to bring down the energy, bring down the support, bring down the ‘umph’ that people have right now. It’s backfiring,” said Ginard, who was at the rally Friday in Denver.
The move to unionize Starbucks stores is happening as workers in several industries have waged strikes for better contracts or tried to form unions for the first time in their workplaces. Labor shortages, especially prevalent in lower-wage jobs, have helped push up pay and stoked labor activity.
In the Denver area, union members at Kroger-owned King Soopers grocery stores walked off the job Jan. 12 after rejecting a contract. Employees approved a contract offer Jan. 24 that the head of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 called industry leading.
Attempts to unionize the Hello Fresh factory in Aurora failed when employees voted in November against collective bargaining. However, up the road in Boulder, bakers, baristas and drivers at Spruce Confections voted in December to be represented by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco, and Grain Millers Union Local 26.
Starbucks has said its employees, who the company calls “partners,” and the company are better together without a union acting as a go-between. Still, Rossann Williams, Starbucks executive vice president, said in a Dec. 20 letter to employees that Starbucks will respect the legal process and bargain in good faith with the union.
But Len Harris said she has watched as employees at the Superior store get fewer and fewer hours. Harris, a shift supervisor, said hours started getting slashed about three weeks ago.
“I had witnessed that kind of trend in stores that had filed (for elections) before us,” Harris said. “When you dip under 20 hours, which a lot of people are right now, you can lose your benefits.”
Insufficient staffing is a major issue for the employees at the store in Superior, Harris said. Other concerns are wages that aren’t keeping up with the rising cost of living and more comprehensive benefits.
The store in Superior was the first Starbucks store in Colorado to file for a union election, Harris said. Employees filed the petition Dec. 30, the start of the Marshall fire, which displaced the store’s workers for a while and burned a worker’s home.
Harris said the wait for a decision on the timing of a vote is frustrating, but she is confident the employees will prevail in the end.
“We have the power. I know we have the power. I’ve assured all of my baristas that we have the power,” Harris said. “They are firmly rooted in that belief.”
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