Workers at a Starbucks coffee shop in Brooklyn were part of a recent filing showing that they are planning to unionize.
Employees at the coffee shop located at 4th Ave. and 11th Street in Brooklyn’s Park Slope filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Tuesday, February 20, stating that they plan to unionize with Starbucks Workers United.
Brooklyn workers were part of a cohort of want-to-be unionized workers filing on that day. They were joined by Starbucks workers at 1149 Old Country Road in Westbury, NY; 184 Seventh Street in Garden City, NY; and at some 21 other stores in 14 states across the nation in the NLRB filing.
“We’re unionizing because we believe in democracy,” Park Slope barista Victoria Blair is quoted as stating as the reason for the filing. “Our daily lives are subject to the whims of monolithic institutions that prioritize profits over human lives and make decisions without the consent of those they govern and without input from the people most affected by their decisions. We are unionizing because we want that to change and believe that we can change that through workplace democratization and the collective power of laborers united in a common cause.”
Savannah Benatar and Kim McDonald, who work in the Westbury Village Starbucks, said: “We, the partners of Westbury Village Starbucks, are organizing because we know we are strongest together. 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.”
The Starbucks Corporation and the companies’ workers have been in an ongoing battle regarding unionizing. SWU now represents workers in 391 Starbucks stores across 43 states, yet the union has claimed that Starbucks refuses to negotiate in good faith for a bargaining agreement. Meanwhile, the Starbucks Corporation has accused the NLRB of colluding with SWU to promote union membership.
