Starbucks Workers in NYC Metro Area Join Largest Single-Day Union Filing

Starbucks workers in Park Slope, Westbury and Garden City filed petitions with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) this week to unionize with Starbucks Workers United. They were joined by baristas at 21 Starbucks stores in 14 states during a flurry of February Filings. The NYC Metro area has the highest density of filings on the largest single-day filing since the campaign began in 2021.

The workers in Brooklyn and Long Island join the growing national movement of more than 9,500 union baristas at nearly 400 union stores, organizing to better their working conditions, including living wages, fair scheduling and policies that respond to discrimination and harassment on the job. The historic campaign, one of the most successful in decades, hinges on peer-to-peer organizing led by workers, for workers - and has won election after election in stores nationwide.

“We’re unionizing because we believe in democracy," said Victoria Blair, 4th Ave & 11th St. Park Slope partner of two years. "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.”

Since December 2021, nearly 400 Starbucks stores in 42 states and the District of Columbia have successfully unionized — more than any other company in the 21st Century, as Starbucks Workers United has taken the industry and world by storm. Read more here and at NPR.