New York-area Starbucks workers seek union

New York-area Starbucks workers are planning to form a union amid the company firing seven employees who tried to form a union, The New York Times reported. 

Employees from company locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Long Island on Thursday filed a petition to form their union with the National Labor Relations Board and organized by Workers United.

In letters, the employees told Starbucks President and CEO Kevin Johnson about the struggles to make a living during the COVID-19 pandemic, work conditions and years of deteriorating trust between the corporation and employees and expressed how a union will help them shape their workplace into a better place, according to the Times. 

“We realize, like our fellow partners across the nation, a union is the way to build back that trust and create a true partnership,” a letter signed by the Brooklyn-based employees said. “We want transparency and accountability, and unionizing gives us the power to make sure our presence is felt.”

The three locations have joined 60 other company restaurants to form their own unions in the past months as two Buffalo, N.Y., stores have recently formed unions, the Times reported. 

Long Island employee Mark Mao told the Times that the past few years at his job have been a “litany of broken promises” about issues concerning wages, staffing and work safety.

“That just makes me feel that this is the right way to do it, the right way forward,” Mao said. “Having a union represent our interests, having us collectively bargain for better working conditions and wages, is more important since this happened.”

This comes as the coffee chain fired seven employees this week who were trying to form a union in a Memphis, Tenn., store, claiming the fired group violated company policies. 

New York state lawmakers sent a letter to Johnson showing their support for the workers union and urged the company to respect the right to organize, the Times reported.

There are currently 9,000 corporate-owned Starbucks locations in the U.S., the Times noted.