Starbucks Announces that Company Wants Union Contract Negotiations to Reach Agreement Next Year

From the Office of Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson, L.L.P.

Starbucks Corp. announced that the Company reached out to the Workers United Union which represents hundreds of its stores to try to end an impasse over contract talks.

The Company stated that it is aiming for talks to resume with a “set of representative stores in January” and is setting a goal of completing “bargaining and the ratification of contracts in 2024,” It has been about two years since the Union won its first victory at a Starbucks cafe in Buffalo, New York. Since then, about 350 of the chain’s 9,000 corporate-run US locations have voted to join, but none has come close to securing a union contract with the Company.

The Company and the Union have disagreed in many store locations about ground rules for the contract negotiation meetings, including whether workers should be allowed to participate via videoconference. The Company has now asked Workers United to commit to conducting sessions without video and audio feeds or recordings.

Regional directors of the National Labor Relations Board have issued more than 100 complaints against Starbucks, alleging illegal anti-union tactics including closing stores, firing activists, and refusing to fairly negotiate at unionized cafes. The NLRB’s general counsel also determined that the coffee chain violated labor law by refusing to participate in collective bargaining sessions if some workers were present via videoconference, an agency spokesperson said earlier this year.

The relationship between the Company and the Union has worsened, resulting in a strike in November in which thousands of baristas claimed the coffee chain has refused to negotiate fairly with the union. The walkout coincided with Red Cup Day when Starbucks gave out holiday-themed reusable cups. Starbucks also sued Workers United in October on the heels of the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, saying the group used the Company’s intellectual property in social media posts suggesting the company supported violence against civilians. The Union responded to the chain’s allegations with its own lawsuit for defamation, accusing the company of seeking to “exploit the ongoing tragedy in the Middle East to harm the union’s reputation.”