Longmont baristas joined employees at 21 Starbucks coffee shops in a petition to join the Starbucks Workers United union.
The baristas wrote a letter to the company's CEO Laxman Narasimhan that the company is cutting hours, creating unreliable schedules and adding more responsibilities to fewer workers.
“We ‘partners’ demand a say. We are the face of Starbucks. As employees, we deserve the same respect and dignity as the CEO,” the letter said.
We noticed during this process that Starbucks workers from California to Maine, from Florida to Washington, face a lot of the same issues such as short staffing and unpredictable schedules. Low wages and unaffordable healthcare. Sexual and racial harassment, broken equipment, unfair discipline, and workplace favoritism. For this reason, we are seeking a national framework of agreements with Starbucks that, when signed, will solve these issues we’re all facing,“ the union stated on its website.
Around 400 stores have unionized including locations in Boulder, Westminster and Superior.
Starbucks states that it is committed to “providing every person who wears the green apron a bridge to a better future.” The company also states that it respects its employees’ rights to collectively organize.
“... in the U.S., Starbucks reached out to Workers United – on behalf of represented partners - to ask them to work with the company to break the gridlock and agree to a collective bargaining process with the hopeful goal of reaching agreements in 2024,” Starbucks’ website states.
