(Image: CHS)

District 3 representative for the Capitol Hill and the Central District Kshama Sawant is standing with workers from a Broadway Starbucks Tuesday, calling for an evening rally in Cal Anderson Park against “union-busting” actions by the Seattle coffee giant.

Friday, workers from the Broadway and Denny shop filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board and accused Starbucks leadership of disciplining an employee for supporting unionization efforts.

“They are a big company, and companies make money off of the difference between their profits and labor costs. So there’s no reason for them to have our best interest at heart, which I think is why it’s so important to form a union,” Sydney Durkin, one of the Broadway and Denny Starbucks workers organizing the efforts told CHS last week.

The first Starbucks in Seattle to plan a vote on union ionization, the workers organizing at Broadway and Denny sent a letter to Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson in December demanding that the company uphold its mission and values.

The letter from the four workers representing the “Starbucks Workers United Organizing Committee—Broadway & Denny” represents only the start of the process. Employees at the location must still vote on the proposed organization and whether they want to collectively bargain over pay and working conditions.

UPDATE: Vice reports that two more Seattle stores — the Westlake drive-thru and the shop at 5th and Pike — joined the Broadway and Denny location Monday by filing for union elections with the National Labor Relations Board. The moves bring the total stores with workers filing across the country to 30, according to organizers.

Starbucks has not yet publicly responded.

The effort is one of a handful currently underway across the country to unionize workers at the $129 billion Seattle-based company. Starbucks said earlier it will bargain “in good faith” with workers at the Buffalo, New York store that became the first to unionize in the company’s history.

But unionization here on the global coffee company’s home turf would mark an even larger victory.

In the complaint filed with the federal labor board, workers allege that Starbucks punished a worker for union-building activities and for testifying at a hearing related to the unionization effort. Starbucks is also alleged to have obstructed the ability of two other workers to testify by refusing to take them off their work schedule, Law360 reports.

Starbucks workers at Broadway and Denny want to stand in solidarity with the union, Durkin said. They want Starbucks to agree to their fair election principles and to allow unions. They also want to show Seattle that anything is possible.

Workers at Broadway and Denny’s Starbucks seek to challenge the status quo, bring the fight to Seattle, and demand worker care such as more livable wages and cheaper health care, Durkin said.

“It’s really about everyone’s fundamental right to have representation at work. It’s bigger than just our store or just Starbucks. It’s really about what we can do for not just the industry but workers everywhere when we all stand together and demand fairness,” Starbucks worker Rachel Ybarra told CHS.

Describing the movement’s outreach, Ybarra said it is like a fire that keeps spreading. “It’s just kind of astounding how much we could win with this. The fight is hard, but I think it’s really worth it,” Ybarra said.

“They are really here for the profit and if they want to prove us wrong then they should voluntarily accept these unions,” Ybarra said.

Durkin said their goals are to elevate the Starbucks partner experience, challenge the company to live up to their ideals, and to help grow a company that “has purported to be one of the best industries to work in.”

As of recent reports, Starbucks employs around 191,000 people across the country with. around 183,000 in company-operated stores and 8,000 in support facilities, store development, and roasting, manufacturing, warehousing and distribution.

Broadway and Denny Starbucks workers plan to continue applying pressure, to negotiate contracts they deem fair, and to align Starbucks’ goals to workers’ common goals throughout Seattle and the nation.

“We want to make Starbucks really raise that bar so that everywhere else has that bar,” Ybarra said.

The Broadway union push comes amid growing efforts to organize labor at some of the largest companies in the nation that experts say align with the pandemic, record job openings, and rising expectations for better pay and working conditions.

Around Capitol Hill, efforts have also included companies much smaller than Starbucks. In 2020, CHS reported on the unionization of workers at Capitol Hill’s Elliott Bay Book Company. In 2021, workers at Central District pot shop Ponder became the latest to organize in a spreading movement to unionize the state’s cannabis industry.

The Broadway and Denny Starbucks is the company’s newest Capitol Hill stand-alone shop though the company said its 2017 opening was technically a “move” of its Broadway and Republican store. The company reduced its Capitol Hill presence quietly during the pandemic, shuttering its Pike and Broadway store permanently in mid-2020 — though it took until mid-2021 for CHS to sort out that the plywood-covered windows were going to stay that way. Through 2020, its Capitol Hill-area and downtown stores were frequent targets for property damage during protests.

Workers in Capitol Hill’s indie coffee shop scene, meanwhile, remain non-unionized though in 2019, employees walked out at E Pike’s Caffe Vita over firings and policies regarding providing free food and coffee to homeless customers. The company was purchased the next year by Deming Maclise who said improving Vita’s relationship with workers was a priority.

This week, Sawant’s office and the Socialist Alternative organization she leads are ramping up efforts to support the Broadway Starbucks coffee workers.

“Starbucks workers are getting organized across the nation, courageously fighting shameless union busting by corporate executives and billionaires like Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz (sic),” the group said in a Tuesday morning press release. “Workers at two stores in Buffalo, NY have successfully won their union. Inspired by their success, workers in over 25 Starbucks stores nationwide have begun their unionization campaigns, including right here in Seattle.”

Sawant and Socialist Alternative said its members will gather Tuesday night in Cal Anderson in a rally that will include Buffalo Starbucks workers Casey Moore and Gianna Reeve, labor representatives, UAW 4121 executive board member Nayon Park, and Seattle Starbucks worker Star Willey.

Ybarra and Durkin also encouraged supporters to become active in the Starbucks Workers United online community, volunteering, and coming to support their Starbucks at Broadway and Denny.

“My hope is that this movement grows, not just within Starbucks but beyond starbucks. My hope is that this becomes the seed that sparks workers everywhere to take back their power,” Durkin said.

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