 I think that we're motivated by one another and I think we're fighting for one another. I want a voice in my company but I want my whole like all my coworkers deserve that. We all deserve a voice. We all are frustrated and share our concerns and we should all be able to have a say in what's happening at our workplace. You know it just feels like a hierarchy and it's like okay well the top gets away with it but anyone at the bottom does not. You know if you can get away with something and we can and like you're not even gonna listen to us then this is how we get our voice to be heard. Starbucks workers are continuing to push forward unionization drives across the United States. On April 11 workers at two Starbucks outlets in the states of Massachusetts voted unanimously in favor of forming a union. The win you can you can just feel how excited everyone was in the room. You could just feel like how much support we've had to like we had at our ballot count um we had like a party for it you know we invited our coworkers who were in the in the vote but we also invited baristas who have recently filed a petition we invited baristas who haven't filed we had we had invitations for our regulars and they showed up like to see like other people in unions to see other baristas to see our regulars like that moment was just so special I'm just so happy I could share that with all of those people who have been a part of the movement. The two outlets are the first to unionize in the state the total number of unionized Starbucks outlets now stands at 18. I mean it's one of the first steps to filing is getting those cards signed and when we started handing out cards it was December 13 or it was December 10th we were really early in the process like there was only Buffalo in Arizona so we knew if we filed if we'd be in the first in the state we would be getting you know attention from corporate and I am still like so so incredibly inspired by every single one of my co-workers that signed a card and even the ones that like couldn't sign a card like I respect them and I am so proud of all of us for like going through that and I found I found that to be really inspiring because I know that they they knew that they could be putting their job on the line when they signed that card. The Starbucks workers united and affiliate of the service employees international union has been organizing workers to form unions in Starbucks chains across the US it has so far successfully conducted 19 union votes meanwhile dozens of other stores across the country have either begun voting or are close to conducting a vote. In December 2021 the first Starbucks store in the US was unionized workers at the M. Wood Avenue Starbucks store in Buffalo New York voted 1988 to unionize you know when one store unionizes there's often a domino effect a bunch of other stores start to unionize too they start to like you know reach out to us how can we do it too because once they see that somebody like them can do it like then they want to do it too like seeing the breezes in Buffalo begin that process and go through it all like I felt like if they can do it we can too you know and so I think we're motivated by workers who are doing this and then we continue to motivate one another by being supportive. The unionization efforts are taking place despite hostility towards workers from the top management of Starbucks and large-scale union busting and so I got in contact with the union rep and we were talking and he's like well as long as you can get at least 30% of your store you can file for an election we got 63% and so yeah it was really great and so when we got our 63% we filed and immediately we were kind of seeing like the district manager come in more we were seeing like posters up about like how like the petition holds legal weight and like be careful what you sign and if you don't want to sign it you can take it back just because you sign it doesn't mean you have to vote yes in the election and it was just very like almost like anti-union stuff. It there were definitely times where like I thought about it and was like oh my god we are going up against a multi-million dollar corporation a corporation that has been rooted in in anti-union tactics that has fought unions and suppressed them for successfully for a long time and it did feel often like the odds were against us but we didn't really let that stop us you know and I think that like we just kept going and like we ended up doing it so I think that like that is the big takeaway is like no matter how big your you know your your foe may be you know like you you can still push through it you can still do it especially when you have the power of you know numbers of people coming together. We only get a certain amount of labor per shift and so I know they can offer us more labor you know I have like three people on the floor sometimes and it's so busy I've got like 15 customers in the lobby I've got like 20 people in the drive-through and everybody's working as fast as they can as hard as they can and it's still like not enough and we can never catch up and so we just want more labor hours I know they can offer it to us you know I've seen the pay increase that Kevin Johnson has had and it's just crazy to me how you know they can keep making more money but yet they want to limit the people on the bottom. It is a violation of federal labor laws for employers to take actions to retaliate against pro-union workers including termination, surveillance or other forms of punishment. The allegations of union busting have only grown after the return of Howard Schultz as the interim CEO of the chain. Schultz has been on a tour to hold collaborative sessions with workers in different outlets to persuade them against unionization. I definitely think it's like a hierarchy thing I don't know if anybody has seen the video about the Howard Schultz he's like I'm not anti-union but I'm pro-starbucks and it's kind of very interesting that you know he would say that because it just feels like he wants the people in power to stay in power and control everything else in between. Nevertheless, the unionization drive is going strong. According to Starbucks Workers United, workers from over 200 out of the over 9,000 Starbucks outlets have already approached the National Labor Relations Board expressing their interest in conducting a union vote. Over a thousand workers across these outlets have become a part of different organizing committees as well. It's it's every day now that we get an inquiry on how to how to unionize how do we get this process started and so it I think it's just going to continue to grow massively for for quite some time um and I think that's because like we we struck all the iron is hot like we we've been like going at it like we haven't really stopped did the organizers who have been invested in this have been like fully invested in this. People have put their time and effort into a job you know time is money but money is not time and so I can never get back these three years that I put into Starbucks. I can never go back to anything and you know the year and a half I missed a schooling to try and promote and work my butt off for this job. I'm never going to get that back. I'm never going to get that back and so what we want is we just want a better work environment. The community solidarity and the customer support is is really important to Barista's right now and that's been something that has really motivated and helped us get through some difficult times so that's something that we're super appreciative of and we we certainly owe our victory to the community solidarity that we we had throughout all of this.