Today, Explained - A grande victory for Starbucks workers

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

Starting a union can be a tall order, but many baristas have found it’s an effective way to venti their frustration with management. This episode was produced by Will Reid, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Paul Mounsey, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're not just employees of Starbucks. I mean, we are Starbucks. It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. And actually, employee is not really a word Starbucks prefers. The term of art for a Starbucks worker is partner. Being a partner, that's not just a word. It's a real sense of ownership.

I've had so many opportunities to grow, and I felt nurtured in that partnership. If you want to be part of something really big, this is the place to do it. It's like, okay, you're going to call me a partner? Like, I'm going to make myself a partner. Like, let's do it. Let's talk. Let's be partners. Today, how Starbucks partners started calling the company out and forming a partnership of their own. delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit

superstore.ca to get started. Ronnie Mola, you're a senior data reporter at Recode from Fox. And for the last couple of months, you have been talking to a lot of baristas. What have you been up to? So I've been talking to tons and tons of baristas. For some reason, they all seem to be 22 years old. I've talked to more 22-year-olds now than I've done since I was 22. And we're seeing this unprecedented wave of unionization happening at Starbucks, you know, the nationwide coffee chain. Already, a whole bunch of Starbucks have voted to unionize. And in the coming weeks and months,

something like 160 more are slated to vote. This is notable because it's a big, widely known corporation. Everyone knows what Starbucks is. And because it's happening in food service where you don't see a lot of unions. The push for unions is a relatively recent development. Starbucks is a 50-year-old company. Before the union organizing began in the last year or so, what kind of relationship did Starbucks have with its employees? So Starbucks is actually known for having a pretty good relationship with its employees. Yet Starbucks covers $20,000 for IVF and related medication for all eligible employees. It's been offering health insurance for years, and that's something that's just virtually unheard of still in food service. So it's just been part of who we are, that if you work here and you've put in the time, you're going to get the benefits that make you a full partner.

You know, they call their employees partners. It was generally considered and perceived to be a good relationship. And as I understand it, there's another thing that appeals to many of the 22-year-olds that you were interviewing, which is that the company's politics are progressive. Yeah, I was a little bit exaggerating. Not all of them were 22. Plenty of them were in their 30s. But yeah, Starbucks is a progressive company. I don't believe the primary objective or the only objective of a for-profit company is to make a profit. You know, they talk about things like LGBTQ rights. Where somebody at a shareholder meeting asks you to maybe soften your position on marriage equality and gay rights. And you essentially said, if you think you can make a better return, go buy something else.

Yes. We employ over 200,000 people in this company, and we want to embrace diversity. A welcome. Hi, Gay. Happy Pradmanth. We are sashaying away with deals. They talk about single origin coffee beans, you name it. And that progressiveness seems to attract progressive

workers. People want to work at a place that's progressive because they're progressive. And, you know, it's sort of this circular relationship. You've got a relatively transient workforce. Many of them are young. These are not the type of people who ordinarily in this country would have gotten together and formed a union, but something changed. What happened? So in one of the Buffalo Starbucks back in 2019, a couple of the baristas started talking about unionizing. You know, they started seeing the dissonance between the company's progressive politics and what was actually happening.

A lot of that had to do with their wages and their ability to be fired and their benefits. It was all sort of talk for a while. And then the pandemic happened. Starbucks is making a major shift to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company is closing up to 400 Starbucks locations. For a while, they were out of work and then they come back and people who were baristas become frontline workers. All of a sudden, their job is inherently dangerous. They have to tell people to put on masks. Back on June 4th, the two entered a Starbucks on West Avenue,

neither one wearing a mask. And when an employee approached the two men and asked them to put a mask on, one man punched the victim in the face. They have to enforce vaccine mandates in some places. And the job just gets really rough. A lot of them get sick. As most of us know, there was the great resignation. It was hard to hire people last year.

So you have this tougher work environment where you're dealing with the dangers of the pandemic, and they're not necessarily staffing as much as they should considering businesses come back. So they're working really hard, and they feel like the company is not giving them adequate protections. Starbucks used to be a good company. They used to treat their workers with respect. And throughout the pandemic, we have seen them disrespect workers over and over. There was definitely a little resentment on behalf of these workers who had to go in. They're saying, you know, the company started rolling back mask mandates

and a lot of other protections a little too fast, a little too brazenly, you know, for corporate members who were still working from home at the time, while these young people had to go in and be frontline workers. When did the first Starbucks stores decide to form a union and how did that process go? So they started trying to unionize in earnest in the spring of 2021. The original Buffalo baristas who were talking about this started reaching out to different partners all around the Buffalo area. That's a little bit easier in a city because you could often sub in for someone at a nearby

Starbucks. So there was a lot of trade-off with employees going to one place and another. And then they sort of get a critical mass by the summer of 2021, at which point they think they have enough supporters. They also think that corporate might've gotten wind of it. So they go public with their intent to unionize in August of 2021. Next tonight, a group of Buffalo baristas taking on one of the world's largest coffee companies and catching the attention of the national media. That gives them a little bit more protections. You know, if they're known to be unionizing, they get the attention of the national media. That gives them a little bit more protections. You know, if they're known to be unionizing, they get the benefit of labor law.

And then Starbucks pushes back and they push back heavily. They send lots and lots of support managers to the Buffalo area. A lot of the demands that the Starbucks workers had, you know, that they were understaffed or they didn't have enough PPE was immediately taken care of. They were like, see, we could fix things. You don't need a union. They also start doing things like captive audience meetings. That's when they tell you while you're on your shift, hey, this is why you shouldn't join our union. Importantly, Starbucks union decided that they wanted to vote on a store by store basis. It's a lot easier to keep a relationship when you have 15,

20, 30 people, and you've talked to them directly, and you know what they're going through, as opposed to trying to organize on a big regional or national basis, because you don't have those close relationships. It's in the best interest of a union to organize on a smaller basis. They have a better chance of unionizing. And the NLRB, the governing body that oversees unions said, okay, yeah, you guys could do it store by store. Then in December 2021. History made in Buffalo, New York, Starbucks workers at the Elmwood Avenue location voted to unionize. They had three votes in Buffalo and two out of the three ended up voting to unionize. So there are thousands of Starbucks stores across the country.

Three of them hold union votes. And then all of a sudden, it's like the dominoes fall. Looking to unionize. That's the goal of employees at a Memphis Starbucks. There's a new push to unionize Starbucks employees across the state of Missouri. Yeah, we told you about the efforts here in the St. Louis area. Well, now the union movement is coming to the Kansas City area. These employees at the Astoria Boulevard Starbucks have become the first in Queens to file for a union election. Why is that? I talked to a lot of these original Starbucks workers

and they said, you know, as soon as it was in the national media, as soon as people from Starbucks around the country saw that this was possible, you know, it just sort of implanted the idea that, oh, wait, we could unionize.

Oh, wait, these are the problems that they have over across the country in Buffalo. They just got tons and tons of inbound emails. They had a website. They're all on social media. They just got tons and tons of inbound emails. They had a website. They're all on social media. They just got tons and tons of people reaching out to them being like, hey, how do we do this? I was told by one of the union leaders that once Seattle

voted to unionize, there's a store in Seattle, which is the hometown of Starbucks. Just that night, he got 30 contacts about unionizing. So we have yes votes in Buffalo. We have unions then form. Have the unions achieved the changes in working conditions that these workers wanted? What's different now? You know, it's like sort of the most cinematic part. Like, OK, they've they've gotten people together. They go in, they vote, they beat this big corporation.

But just because you've unionized doesn't mean that you get the benefits of a union. Now they actually have to negotiate a contract. And that is a really tough thing to do. The contract is the document that says, OK, these are the benefits you are going to get. Here's the floor on wages. Here are the sort of health benefits that you get. We can't fire you without just cause that sort of thing. All of that stuff has to be in the contract.

And they don't have contracts yet. They have to work with the company to create a contract and negotiate what they want. And that's really hard to do given current labor laws. The company is supposed to bargain in good faith, but there is no real teeth behind the NLRB's power to make them do so. And there's nothing forcing companies to actually agree to the contract. So they've got a big, difficult road ahead of them in order to get their contract. How long do contracts usually take to sign? So they could take anywhere from six months to never. I saw a stat, it depends on which data set you're looking at, but something like 30% of unions never reach a contract,

or at least not after a few years. And by that point, you know, they lose a lot of steam, a lot of people who are originally they're unionizing maybe have left, and it's sort of done. So it's really important that they do get a contract. So part of the impetus for all of this is that you have a workforce that is relatively young, you have young people that is relatively young. You have young people who decided to unionize who now may be dealing with contract negotiations for years, and yet they don't expect to be at Starbucks forever. Do you think that the workers who started this movement will end up seeing any of the benefits? A lot of them I spoke to, you know, I don't know if they're going to be there in a few years. A lot of them are in college.

Some have been there already five years and, you know, plan to be there longer. It really depends. I think they came of age during these big social movements, Black Lives Matter, Me Too. They're really comfortable with the idea of creating change in the world. They're also very comfortable with technology, which helps them spread that message. But I think overall, the sentiment was, we want to make this better for other Starbucks workers and for workers everywhere. We want this to happen at McDonald's. We want this to happen at Taco Bell. I don't think it was so short-sighted that they're like, okay, I need this to happen in the next year for me. I think they want it to be a larger movement. Ronnie Mola is a senior data reporter at Recode from Vox.

Coming up, I talk to a Starbucks union organizer in Rochester, New York. Support for today explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, R-A-M-P.com slash explained. Cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC Terms and conditions apply. Born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM.

A sportsbook worth a slam dunk. An authorized gaming partner of the NBA. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you,

please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Today, today, explain. Last week on Thursday and Friday, six more Starbucks stores voted to unionize in upstate New York. That brings the total number to 16. Haley Fagan is a union organizer at one of those stores. It's a Starbucks drive-thru near Rochester, New York. That brings the total number to 16. Haley Fagan is a union organizer at one of those

stores. It's a Starbucks drive-thru near Rochester, New York. Workers or partners at her store voted 10 to 3 in favor of the union. It was overwhelming. I cried when they counted the, like, last yes ballot we needed to, like, win ours. Haley Fagan is 22. She's worked for Starbucks for five years now. She started out as a barista. Today, she's a shift supervisor. So I guess that's another way to say key holder. So in the mornings, like if my store manager isn't there, so I'm opening them up. I'm counting the safe, taking temperatures, inventory, placing inventory orders. We do frozen food polls for the next day. We'd tell like our

baristas where to go, what to do. We send them on breaks, stuff like that. You're the manager. Yeah. Everything short of like writing schedules and like hiring. How much do you make as the manager of a Starbucks location? As a supervisor right now, I believe I make $22.84. What does that add up to over the course of a year? Oh, gosh. That's kind of hard to say just because hours are so up and down all the time.

All of us are like part time. I don't think anyone is technically full time except the actual store manager. So one week I could be working like 20 hours and the next week I might be working like 32 or I might be working like 18. I think last year it was around 30,000 though. Okay. Yeah. I didn't realize that your hours were so varied. I assumed you were doing 40 hours a week, but it sounds like that's not at all guaranteed. No. And what's an average day's schedule for you?

I would say on average 5 a.m. anywhere to like 10 a.m. to like 1.30 p.m. It's super varied. Working at a Starbucks, working in food service or retail, not necessarily the kind of job that is unionized. It never would have occurred to me when I was your age to push for a union at one of my jobs in food service. Why did you think it was necessary? What was going through your head? So in like my five and a half years with Starbucks, I've been with multiple different stores through like store closures in which our district manager had, you know, come to us and promised like you guys are going to be OK.

Your store is going to be fine. And then, you know, maybe a month later, they were like, by the way, your store is not fine. And now we're going to have to find you somewhere else to work. You know, as someone who doesn't drive, the first location I worked at, I worked out of proximity, especially because I was 17 when I was hired. And then I got moved to a location that was a bit farther away, and I had to Uber more and rely on rides more, and I guess I just got used to it. So it's been something I kind of just deal with because I'm working towards my license currently.

But also now Ubers are more expensive. There's some mornings where it's like, if I don't get this $50 Uber right now, I'm going to get written up. But if I do get this $50 Uber right now, that's $50 out of my paycheck. That's two and a half hours of work just to go work for like maybe six hours. And then I've still got to pay to go home. Like that's not sustainable. Store closures, when they place people after, it's not like them working with us to like find a spot that's good for us they just stick us somewhere there's very little like regard for like your actual need they don't care about partners when they close stores it's just a money thing

how did the pandemic change your job something about what happened in the past two years just feels so like profit driven there's always a push to like introduce all these new drinks or like this new equipment that you have to learn how to use and maintain and clean while we're also cutting your hours because like the pandemic and everything like people are getting sick obviously stores aren't able to maintain the like normal operational hours that stores don't earn enough money to like earn the hours to schedule people. So they just told us it was our fault basically that we don't get hours anymore. thinking about my early 20s. And if I felt like an employer was jerking me around, I think my first impulse would be, forget these guys. I'm going to go work someplace else, right? I'll go work down at the PX. I'll go work at the hotel restaurant. You've stuck with Starbucks. Why is that? When it sounds like there's been a lot of upheaval and a lot of it hasn't been super great. Yeah. So that is something I honestly find

myself thinking about a lot. So I struggled a lot with like mental health as like a younger teenager and something I really found at my first store was kind of that like found family with my co-workers. It was a very small kiosk of like eight employees. We saw each other every day. It was, you know, all my friends. And as rough as it was, I really found like value and joy in that going to work and doing things and making drinks and making people smile and talking to people. comfort and honestly, like genuine opportunity for all of the negative it brings. There's a reason that I want to fight to make it better for myself. And it's because I don't want to leave. What was the exact moment where you thought the solution to all of this is forming a union? That really is when like Buffalo went for it, just like seeing them like, oh, they're forming a union. And something in my head was them like, oh, they're forming a union and

something in my head was just like, wait, I could do that. Like, why didn't I ever think of that? You know, that's one of those things like you heard about like the fight for 15 or whatever, but like you don't hear about like food service workers like doing things and not for nothing. When the fight for 15 was happening, I was probably like 10 and you know, my father, he was very like conservative. So all I was hearing from him was like, oh, those lazy people who want $15 for flipping burgers as like a child. So I was just like, I never paid attention to it. It never like interested me. But watching other people do things that I could have never really thought of or like never would have thought of and watching it actually happen,

like that's really inspiring. But also hearing from my other co-workers, like it is bad and this is a good option. Like, you know, we can do this. That's also very inspiring because that's a team of like 20 people standing behind me. Now you've done it. You 10 to 3 in favor of the union. There you go. What is next? What do you do now? Yeah. So we got to figure out who we want on our bargaining committee and get that going. You want to be on? I absolutely do. I would love to. It would be so cool. And what do you hope? I know that once you hit the phase of bargaining, then you're looking at asking for stuff, right? What are you going to ask for? What do you hope will change? What do

you want? So for myself personally, I really hope to see any semblance of increased transparency. And I guess that's very broad, but I guess to like put it in perspective on two separate occasions, I've been promised like, oh, you're fine, your store is fine. And then all of a sudden a week later, it was like, by the way, in two weeks, your store is not fine. Sorry. You want more security that when you're told a thing by your employer, when Starbucks says your store isn't going to close, you want to guarantee that that's true. They're not going to tell us two weeks later that, oh, actually, you're out of a job. And see, that is like a very specific example that I'm sure not everyone can relate to. But on the same note, like a store closure is not a sudden decision. That's something like they've been looking at numbers for a while. Why aren't we part of that conversation at all? Why don't we know until it's too late? If this affects my financial security, my job security, what's happening to me, why don't I know? I want to know. I deserve to know. The CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz,

said at a company town hall recently. Here's where it gets a little sensitive because I've been coached a little bit, but I do want to talk about something pretty serious. We can't ignore what is happening in the country as it relates to companies throughout the country being assaulted in many ways by the threat of unionization. That man's the CEO of a company that you mostly like working for,

have invested five years of your life in what do you make of that statement i heard it and honestly it was just like a little funny to me like honestly we went to work next morning and everyone who had like heard about it we were like what do you mean like i he talks about like how starbucks is better without a union and like you know good if we can just talk to partners like you know partner to partner or whatever but it's like he's super ignoring the fact that partners are starting the unions like workers united isn't like getting a like full staff of people hired at every unionizing like store store that's filed to like make it happen it's like this is like 200 ish stores across like 28 states and it's all these people saying like hey there needs to be a change and like it's laughable when he's like oh we're being assaulted and it's like no like we're just

saying we deserve better there's no outside force attacking or assaulting anyone. Like, we are the union. That's the point. We have a say. If an outside force had a say over us, we wouldn't be doing this. You know, we are becoming unionized, so we have a say. Haley Fagan, 22 years old.

She started at Starbucks as a barista. She became a shift supervisor. And now you can add union organizer to her title. Today's show was produced by Will Reed, edited by Matthew Collette, engineered by Paul Mouncey, and fact-checked by Laura Bullard. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. you