“Its empowerment.” Baristas from the Atlanta area reflect on what a union means for their jobs, their stores and the Starbucks corporation as a whole.
Starbucks Unions have grown in numbers and power throughout the last few years. Since August 2021, when the Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) was created, stores around the United States have been working to unionize, each one bringing more baristas and firepower to the movement.
One of the most recent stores to pursue unionization is the Dallas Highway Starbucks in Kennesaw, GA. A worker’s organizer committee within the store has organized a union vote to be held on March 12th.
Within the 649 stores in the United States that voted to unionize, only 99 lost an election, meaning that 550 Starbucks locations are currently unionized.
In an effort to show support for their effort, pro-union baristas from other stores and union-organizers directly from SBWU attended a “sip-in” inside the Dallas Highway Starbucks on February 18th.
The “sip-in” is just one of many parts of this movement that Elexis Bernavil, Shabeen Khetani and Amanda River take part in. They met while working at their Starbucks store in Atlanta. Bernavil and Khetani currently work there, while River recently left to become a full-time union organizer.
The SBWU’s main goal is the creation of a union contract, which would give unionized stores improved benefits, wages and working conditions. More demands the SBWU makes include expanded rights for workers, more protection from harassment, better healthcare, an improved scheduling process, expanded leave of absence and paid time off and an end to the Starbucks corporation’s well-documented union-busting.
Khetani has personally faced repercussions for being pro-union, including “being scheduled outside my availability, not being given proper training, and just being reprimanded for something that wasn’t my fault.”
Rivers told the story of a man who was fired for being pro-union.
“They had a 27 year Starbucks worker, hired by Howard Shultz, the former CEO of this company. He works at that store, they fired him for something that they didn’t do an investigation on, they just knew he was kind of leading this union organizing effort at their store.”
“He got his job back, though, after people organized in support of him,” River continued, “Everyone at the store refused to go to work until they brought him back. They gave him his job back, and back pay within 24 hours and wrote an apology letter.”
Union-busting efforts also consist of “spreading a lot of misinformation,” according to Khetani. “The company says the union is a third party representative, when the union is basically all the baristas that work at Starbucks.”
“The union is the baristas, and the baristas are the union,” River said.
Bernavil explained that being a part of a unionized Starbucks is completely different from a non-union location, saying, “As a recent transfer, it’s night and day for me.”
“It makes you feel like you matter,” added River.
Part of this is because of their Weingarten rights, which gives employees the right to a union representative during any investigatory interview.
“I just like knowing that I won’t lose my job, for let’s say, [if] I didn’t follow a specific company policy perfectly, or if the manager just has it out for me”
Khetani continues, “In that case I have that protection where like ‘No, no, I can actually defend myself,’ whereas, if I was not unionized, the company would just be able to let me go.”
As of now, the SBWU and Starbucks are in discussions, working to create a framework to achieve bargaining agreements for unionized stores and baristas.
“Since February, Starbucks has repeatedly pledged publicly that they intended to reach contracts by the end of the year, but they’ve yet to present workers with a serious economic proposal,” The union reported to NPR.
As the union’s fight continues and the Dallas Highway Starbucks prepares to hold their union vote, Bernavil, Khetani and River will keep organizing and helping the movement. “Its empowerment, and once you see the difference you can’t ignore it,” Says River.
“We always did have power, but now we know how to use it in a way that keeps us protected and safe within the law.”