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Starbucks Sends Workers United Dates and Locations to Start Bargaining

Published on: • 3 min read

List of Stores where Starbucks has Proposed Dates & Locations for Bargaining Sessions

Today, we sent Workers United (WU) proposed dates and locations to start or restart contract bargaining sessions covering 79 stores. This comes off the heels of letters sent two weeks ago to progress scheduling for stores represented by WU. As a final step, WU must agree to dates and locations so that both parties can meet at the table. 

We are actively engaged to schedule bargaining start dates and locations for dozens of other stores, and we look forward to hearing from WU on behalf of the remaining stores. 

List of Stores where Starbucks has Proposed Dates and Locations for Bargaining Sessions (as of Oct. 10, 2022) Download

Response Letter Sent to WU President Lynne Fox on Oct. 3, 2022

Notably, last week, Starbucks also responded to an ongoing exchange with WU President Lynne Fox about collective bargaining. As we continue our efforts to ensure individual partner voices and the specific needs of individual stores are considered, we want to share three important updates regarding the overall collective bargaining efforts:

  • WU has removed all partners as points of contact for bargaining and has replaced them with either WU contacts or union lawyers. We are very concerned how this may impact the ability of our partners to have their voices heard. 
  • WU has continued to delay the process of scheduling sessions despite our repeated requests to do so, and has even interrupted bargaining that was already underway at two New York locations by refusing to set dates and times for subsequent in-person sessions.
  • Finally, WU has continued to argue for blanket negotiations regionally – and even nationally – despite the fact that WU insisted that every single store location was an “appropriate” bargaining unit on a stand-alone basis. It is now unlawful for either Starbucks or WU to insist that any single set of negotiations apply to multiple stores on a regional or national basis. The oddly contradictory position of WU further disrupts meaningful, single-store bargaining, and their requests for an assembly line process that only allots one bargaining session for each individual store is deeply disappointing. We are concerned that WU intends to make each store’s session identical to every preceding session. This “cookie cutter” approach is particularly troubling after hearing so many promises from WU that individual partner concerns were such a priority.
Response Letter Sent to WU President Lynne Fox on October 3, 2022Download

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Prior letters sent by Starbucks to WU regarding bargaining can be found here and here. More information about WU’s insistence on single store units is available here. Lastly, get the facts about how federal labor law limits our ability to improve or change benefits at stores listed above.