2 Chicago Starbucks locations among 21 nationwide seeking union vote

Workers at two Starbucks locations in Chicago filed petitions Tuesday with the National Labor Relations Board seeking to unionize, joining several stores across the country in a single-day organizing effort.

The Chicago locations — at Madison and Wells and 58th Street and Western Avenue — were among 21 Starbucks in the U.S. whose workers filed for a union representation election, according to Starbucks Workers United, part of the Service Employees International Union.

The workers, whom the company calls "partners," say they are organizing for better working conditions, including higher wages and more reliable scheduling.

"I was motivated to work with my team to unionize by a belief that I and my co-workers — both in my store and at stores across the country — deserve a workplace where we are respected as people and our input as the partners on the floor day in and day out is valued," Hawthorne Williams, a barista and union organizer at the Madison and Wells store, said in a statement. "I believe that working collectively as a union is the best thing we can do to ensure that Starbucks hears what we have to say and to make lasting change.”

Workers at the 21 stores also wrote a letter to Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan announcing the nationwide organizing push.

“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. “We ‘partners’ demand a say. We are the face of Starbucks. As employees, we deserve the same respect and dignity as the CEO.”

Starbucks spokesperson Andrew Trull said in a statement that the company respects the rights of its workers to organize and reaffirms its aim to negotiate first contracts for union-represented stores this year.

"We encourage all partners at stores petitioning for representation to get the facts, make an informed choice and ensure their voice is heard by voting in neutral, secret-ballot elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board," Trull said. "Our aim will be to ensure the process is fair and our partners’ voices are heard."

Trull also said the company has recently been working to improve workers' experiences at its stores. Starbucks invested more than 20% of its 2023 profits back into partners and stores through wages, training and equipment, he said.

"Continued efforts like these have helped the company improve average hours per U.S. partner by 5 percent and increase total hourly compensation for U.S. partners by nearly 50 percent since fiscal year 2020," Trull added.

In November, Starbucks announced that it would be increasing pay and benefits for most of its U.S. hourly workers after ending its fiscal year with record sales. But unionized workers were not eligible for some of those perks.

Workers United said excluding unionized stores was against the law and said it would be filing an unfair labor practice complaint with the NLRB.

The two sides have gone back and forth since a national organizing push began in 2021, when Starbucks workers in the Buffalo, New York, area decided to form a union.

Since then, Workers United has won union representation elections at 391 Starbucks stores in the U.S. vs. 88 defeats, according to a count by the pro-labor group More Perfect Union. Starbucks has about 9,000 company-owned locations in the U.S.

The group also found that eight Starbucks stores in Chicago have voted to unionize, and four have rejected the move.

One of those stores was the world's largest location at the Chicago Reserve Roastery, 646 N. Michigan Ave. Workers voted against the union push in August, representing a major setback for the union.