Westbury, Garden City Starbucks Locations File To Unionize
Starbucks workers from locations in the villages of Westbury and Garden City filed petitions with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Tuesday to hold a vote to unionize with Starbucks Workers United.
Should the effort be successful, the Westbury and Garden City stores will join five other unionized Starbucks locations on Long Island – the others being in Farmingville, Massapequa, Wantagh, Westbury Galleria, and Lynbrook.
“Across the country management is cutting hours, writing inconsistent and unreliable schedules, and placing more and more work on fewer and fewer partners,” the workers wrote in a letter to Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan. “We ‘partners’ demand a say. We are the face of Starbucks. As employees, we deserve the same respect and dignity as the CEO.”
A store in Park Slope, Brooklyn also filed that same petition today. According to Workers United NY/NJ, the The New York City metropolitan area has the highest density of filings on the largest single-day filing since the campaign began in 2021.
A total of 21 locations across the country filed for union elections Tuesday, including locations in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, North Dakota, New York, Nevada, Ohio, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
“We, the partners of Westbury Village Starbucks, are organizing because we know we are strongest together,” Savannah Benatar and Kim McDonald of the Westbury Village location said in a joint statement. “We are tired of being overworked, understaffed, and fighting for hours when we need them to support ourselves outside of work. We are fighting for better working conditions and updated security measures that prioritize partner safety and encourage us to thrive at work. We are excited to join this historic campaign and enact meaningful change for our current and future partners.”
For its part, Starbucks criticized complaints made by workers but claimed to welcome the NLRB holding these union votes.
“We believe that our direct relationship as partners is core to the culture and experiences we create in our stores,” Andrew Trull, a spokesperson for Starbucks, said. “To that end, wherever we can quickly and broadly improve partner benefits and perks, our history demonstrates we have. In the past fiscal year, Starbucks has invested more than 20% of the company’s yearly profits back into our partners and stores, though wages, training, equipment and new store growth. We recognize that a subset of partners feel differently and we respect their right to organize, freely associate, engage in union activities and bargain collectively without fear of reprisal or retaliation. As a next step, we welcome the opportunity for partners at stores petitioning for representation to vote in neutral, secret ballot elections conducted by the NLRB.”
Since the campaign launched in 2021, over 400 Starbucks locations across the country have voted to unionize.
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