On August 30, 2021, three Starbucks stores in and around Buffalo, New York, filed union election petitions with the National Labor Relations Board.
In the eight months since, close to 250 other Starbucks stores have followed, driving a surge in union election petitions not seen since 2015. The NLRB reported that union election petitions were up 57% in the first half of the 2022 fiscal year, compared with the year before. Starbucks petitions account for nearly a quarter of all petitions filed since January.
The Starbucks unionizing effort is remarkable, not only because of the stunning speed at which it has spread — more than 40 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize — but also because food and drink establishments have traditionally been among the least unionized workplaces in the U.S. Only 1.2% of all workers in the sector were unionized in 2021, according to the Labor Department.
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