Starbucks employees in Astoria, Queens voted to unionize Monday, forming the coffee chain’s fourth unionized shop within the five boroughs, according to union leadership.
Eleven workers voted in support of the union and no one voted against it, according to Workers United, the SEIU-affiliated national union organizing Starbucks employees across the country. Workers are pushing for higher salaries and more time off, better schedules and the power to help address health and safety concerns in the workplace, among other issues.
"I'm extremely proud,” said Brandi Alduk, an organizer who’s worked at the Astoria location for the past three years. “I'm hopeful for what the future holds, and want others to join our fight for our livelihood.”
Workers planned to rally outside the MoMA Tuesday night to confront Starbucks board chair Mellody Hobson — who’s being honored for her philanthropy — to call out the company’s anti-union tactics. Employees have described facing threats from managers regarding their pay, schedules and discipline in response to their organizing efforts.
Spokespeople for the National Labor Relations Board and Starbucks didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
Starbucks employees in Buffalo voted to form the coffee giant’s first union in the country last December. Since then, there’s been a flurry of organizing and more than one hundred shops across the country have voted to unionize, with dozens of other elections pending, according to the union.
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has railed against the efforts. In an April presentation for local and regional managers, he called the unionization efforts, “an outside force that’s trying to disrupt our company,” according to a leaked recording published by the labor publication, More Perfect Union. While he said workers do have a right to form a union he added, “it’s also an American right of workers not to unionize and to embrace the values, the culture of his or her company.”
In April, workers at the company’s Chelsea roastery voted to form a union, becoming the first New York City location to do so. Employees at the Astor Place outpost and one in Sheepshead Bay followed suit.
