Employees at first ever Starbucks store seek to unionize amid fight for contract

Workers at the historic first Starbucks store are seeking to unionize as the coffee retail giant and its union appear stalemated over their first contract.

The first Starbucks store opened in 1971 in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, and the store serves as a tourist site in Seattle.

Nailah Diaz, a Starbucks barista for about five years, three of those at Pike Place, said the Pike Place store can often have lines out the door, with waits up to two hours for tourists to come inside and look around.

She said workers at Pike Place are tasked with greater customer service responsibilities and the significant tourist traffic can bring about issues with disruptive customers and safety.

“I myself have experienced unfair treatment, favoritism, discrimination and harassment with little to no support from management, and for me, joining this fight is me making sure that no one else has to go through what I have,” said Diaz. “We feel personally empowered by each other’s courage, the encouragement of our fellow union baristas and honestly, the unwavering support from our Pike Place Market community.”

The Starbucks workers at Pike Place announced their union election filing earlier this month, seeking to join the more than 600 Starbucks stores that have won union elections in the US since 2021.

As the Starbucks unionization campaign has continued growing, the fight for a first union contract remains ongoing. Starbucks Workers United recently filed an unfair labor practice (ULP) charge against Starbucks, alleging regressive bargaining when negotiations resumed this month after nearly a year without any movement.

“Starbucks has returned to the bargaining table, but its behavior hasn’t improved. We filed a ULP over the company’s attempt to illegally withdraw from seven signed tentative agreements previously achieved through months of bargaining,” Starbucks Workers United said in a statement.

The average time it takes for a union to reach a first contract is about 465 days, but Starbucks workers are still fighting for a union contract more than four years after the first store unionized.

While the fight for a first contract continues, the union is asking the public to refrain from buying Starbucks in solidarity and to delete the Starbucks app.

Skyler Blair, a barista at Starbucks for about five years, said the Pike Place store has a lot more workers than most store locations.

Blair described the first Starbucks store as a museum or time capsule that receives visitors from all over the world with a focus on telling the company’s story and listening to the stories of the people who come to visit the store.

Unlike most Starbucks locations, the store does not have food, mobile orders, or a designated lobby area where people can sit and hang out.

“Customers come in, are excited to be there, and want to see and talk with us to learn the history of the store, and over time, things have gotten a little bit more difficult in order to focus on that, whether that be unsafe working conditions or the prolonged stress and fatigue that comes with such an active role in the store. That’s why we started reaching out to the union,” said Blair. “We felt that experience we care so much about, we’re feeling it’s becoming harder and harder to maintain that with the current way Starbucks is operating.”

He said that workers at the store began discussing unionizing after realizing they had similar experiences of feeling they had been treated unfairly.

“Talking with each other, we started realizing that some people had gone to Starbucks for resolution and had not reached that and we all kind of shared similar sentiment, so eventually that led to us reaching out to the union and deciding to really join the fight for a better workplace,” Blair said.

Both Blair and Diaz cited Starbucks’s record of union busting, including allegations of shutting down unionized stores and firing or disciplining workers for union activities, which Starbucks has denied.

“Starbucks, as a company, has a pretty historic record of union busting,” said Diaz.

Blair said that Starbucks’s record on unionization instills fear in workers of being retaliated against, but the unity in workers coming together to improve their workplace has offset those fears.

“I do believe the unity that I have with fellow baristas with me in this cause to really fight for a better workplace is stronger than any fear that could be out there,” Blair said. “So while it may be challenging at times, I do feel like there is hope.”

A Starbucks spokesperson, Jaci Anderson, said: “Starbucks has been engaging in good faith and put forward comprehensive proposals that build on Starbucks’ already competitive pay and industry-leading benefits.”

“Significant changes have occurred over the past two years, including during the period when Workers United chose not to bargain, and it is appropriate that proposals reflect current business realities, customer expectations, and partner interests. We are at the table and engaging in good faith,” said Anderson.

In response to the Pike’s Place location’s union drive, Anderson said the workers at the store earn more than typical Starbucks workers and that not all workers at the store are supportive of the union.

“Filing a petition is simply the start of a process. Our partners are at the heart of who we are, and today, we offer industry-leading pay and benefits,” added Anderson.