Starbucks ditches union bargaining sessions

Today, Starbucks Workers United posted photos and videos from bargaining sessions with Starbucks where company representatives ditched the meetings in California and Buffalo, NY.

(3) Tyler - Starbucks Workers United on Twitter: "STARBUCKS WALKED OUT ON US DURING BARGAINING. https://t.co/Qt1OMBo7j2" / Twitter

(3) Starbucks Workers United on Twitter: "Starbucks is now refusing to bargain — or even listen to our proposals — because a few workers are joining the session virtually. https://t.co/GLHSOnR96L" / Twitter

Starbucks posted on their own social media account a page of PR crafted arguments, many of which undermine one another, are incoherent altogether, or omit and ignore anything the company doesn’t want to address.

They start by claiming, “Collective bargaining is, unfortunately and historically, an adversarial process in the United States. Bargaining agreements are complex documents, and in the U.S. it takes about 465 days to negotiate a first contract.”

The ‘adversarial’ part is a choice, not inherent, and the 465 day average includes much larger bargaining units than a single store and is due to employers refusing to bargain, delaying bargaining, and trying to undermine the union. Characterizing this average as an inherent fact is disingenuous.

For instance, a Verizon store similar in size to a Starbucks store that unionized in Washington earlier this year ratified its first union contract just a few months later in August 2022, and Verizon has and still opposes unionization efforts. More ‘complex’ union contracts are developed and agreed upon all the time

Then Starbucks complains about Workers United pursuing regional and national negotiations, after pursuing store by store unionization efforts, which the NLRB ruled in favor of against Starbucks. This isn’t some strange pursuit, as national, regional, and localized agreements are not uncommon in collective bargaining.

Then Starbucks throws shade at the unionized stores, claiming a majority of workers didn’t vote or voted against the union, (going from insisting on single store bargaining, then lumping all the certified union stores together when convenient). Starbucks workers voted in favor of unionizing at these stores, and you can’t make sweeping generalizations about non-votes, which could be for any reason like workers quitting because of union busting, to cast criticism toward the democratic process while claiming you respect it. It’s election denial, undemocratic, and infers that Starbucks would be more apt to bargain with stores where a firm majority of workers did vote and voted for the union, yet that ...