MILWAUKEE STARBUCKS BARISTAS WIN UNION ELECTION, AS NATIONWIDE MOVEMENT GROWS

Store becomes 7th location in Wisconsin to win union, as historic effort gains momentum

Milwaukee — Starbucks workers continue to win union organizing victories in stores across the country, as today workers at the Marquette store overwhelmingly voted to join Starbucks Workers United. With a vote of 12-to-4, partners at the Marquette location became the 7th Starbucks store in Wisconsin to join Starbucks Workers United in one of the most rapidly growing organizing campaigns in modern history.

“Winning this election means that everything we fought for wasn’t for nothing,” said Xylia Trask (they/she), who has worked at Starbucks for three years. “There’s still hope for our store and our city. Now, a future exists not only at our store, but nationwide for Starbucks workers to have a dignified and safe workplace.”

The Marquette store partners join a quickly expanding nationwide movement of more than 9,500 baristas organizing together for justice, fighting for improvements on core issues including respect, living wages, racial and gender equity, and fair scheduling. The historic organizing 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.

Workers continue to organize and take direct action, recently winning essential changes to Starbucks mobile order policy after a massive “Red Cup Rebellion” with more than 5,000 Starbucks workers walking out at more than 150 locations across dozens of states. They are demanding Starbucks end illegal union-busting tactics and bargain in good faith with workers who voted to form a union. In more than three dozen separate decisions, federal administrative law judges have found that Starbucks has committed more than 300 violations of federal labor law, including 38 unlawful firings, refusing to bargain, and unlawfully providing non-union workers higher wages and better benefits than workers who voted to form a union.

Still, Starbucks union workers remain determined in their demand for fair pay and hours, safe working conditions, and a commitment to quality and culture that reflects the Starbucks brand they built.

Since December 2021, more than 390 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. More victories are expected to be announced soon, as partners at stores across the country continue to come together to transform their jobs and their industry.