Starbucks workers in Brooklyn joined some of their fellow baristas around the nation in letting the company know that they are planning to unionize.
Employees at the coffee shop on Fourth Avenue in Park Slope filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board Tuesday to unionize with Starbucks Workers United.
News 12 reached out to Starbucks for a comment and received the following statement:
While we believe our direct relationship as partners is core to our culture and our continued improvements to the partner experience, we respect the rights of partners to organize and reaffirm our aim to negotiate first contracts for represented stores this year. We encourage all partners at stores petitioning for representation to get the facts, make an informed choice and ensure their voice is heard by voting in neutral, secret-ballot elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. Our aim will be to ensure the process is fair and our partners’ voices are heard.
Additionally, we know a core piece of a positive partner experience is consistent scheduling and predictable hours, and we’ve continued to work to build weekly schedules that reflect our partners’ preferred hours and support expected customer demand. As such, Starbucks has invested more than 20% of the Company’s 2023 profits back into our partners and stores through wages, training and equipment. Continued efforts like these have helped the company improve average hours per U.S. partner by 5% and increase total hourly compensation for U.S. partners by nearly 50% since fiscal year 2020.