In a ballot count less suspenseful than recent counts for other Buffalo-area Starbucks stores, workers at the Delaware Avenue and Chippewa Street location learned they’d voted to unionize by a wide margin Thursday.
A count by the National Labor Relations Board found workers voted by a tally of 18-1 to join Workers United and become the sixth unionized Starbucks store in Western New York and 11th across the U.S. Subsequent counts Thursday for two Rochester stores brought the total to 13.
The 18-1 vote at the Delaware and Chippewa store comes nearly a month after votes at three other Buffalo-area stores were all decided by a single vote.
“We had strong feelings that we were going to win,” said Roisin Doherty, who called fellow baristas working at the Delaware and Chippewa store to break the news. “As much as Starbucks tried their best to make sure that we didn't get this victory, we proved them wrong and we won in a landslide.”
Starbucks Workers United has accused the company of surveillance, intimidation and targeting union leaders, filing 21 Unfair Labor Practice charges with the NLRB in February. The Seattle-based coffee giant has denied the allegations.
Doherty said the constant presence of out-of-town company executives may have actually pushed more Delaware and Chippewa workers to vote yes, noting their downtown store received more attention than most. Many of the executives stayed at nearby hotels that workers “would not be able to afford,” Dougherty said, and at one point came across the street to reprimand workers for not requesting help closing the store.
“I just think the proximity to corporate really helped drive home that corporate is there to get rid of this,” Doherty said. “They're not our friends and that really got driven home.”
Workers are currently contending with a new CEO, as former longtime company leader Howard Schultz replaced the retiring Kevin Johnson on an interim basis this week.
The company’s chairwoman, Mellody Hobson, told CNBC last month that Schultz is “singularly capable” of engaging with Starbucks workers.
Doherty isn’t so sure.
“I think they're gonna be surprised when they find out that … a lot of baristas don't care for him,” Doherty said. “I don't think a lot of people care for him. And I think that it's just going to help us win more stores now that they put an alleged narcissist in charge.”
The two Rochester stores voted by tallies of 13-11 and 10-3 to unionize, becoming that city’s first two unionized Starbucks locations. Meanwhile three Ithaca stores are set to have their ballots counted Friday.
Overall, more than 180 Starbucks stores across 29 states have filed to hold union votes since Buffalo workers began their union campaign in August.
