Huntsville Starbucks workers file for a union election

Workers at the Starbucks on University Drive and North Memorial Parkway in Huntsville officially filed for a union election earlier this month. If they win the election on May 12, the store will be the third unionized Starbucks in Alabama, joining a location in Birmingham and one in Scottsboro. 

APR interviewed two of the baristas involved with the campaign about their experiences at the store and why they want to be represented by Starbucks Workers United. Neither has been a member of a union before, but both said repeated difficulties with management, persistent understaffing and insufficient training have led them to believe unionizing is a necessary next step.

“There’s always those quiet little hushed conversations, like ‘You know what would fix this? A little union action,’ and that’s just sort of like a giggle between partners,” Nox, who has been working at the Huntsville store for two years, told APR. “It’s not a joke anymore, and that’s a good and bad thing.”

She explained that “there’s a certain point when the majority of people’s needs are not being met and that is like really the tipping point.”

Briar Wolf, who has been working there for two months, said she “had been there for about three weeks and had a couple of chats with some of the other employees, and that’s when I decided to reach out to the union.”

 “On days when we would be understaffed, they would close the restaurant early and tell people that if they wanted to make up those hours, they had to use their own PTO,” Briar related. “There were many instances in my first several weeks where I came in and we were understaffed, and I kind of got thrown into the fire as opposed to being allowed time to train and practice and get used to things.”

Briar also told APR that the store has closed early “at least four times” during one of her shifts in just the relatively short time she’s been working there. Nox said that, at its worst, closing early was “almost guaranteed four days a week.”

When asked why workers at the store are trying to unionize, Briar answered that they just want “pay that is commensurate with the cost of living in the area where the store is and where the people that work in the store live,” as well as some “basic human respect.”

“Hour guarantees and job security” are Nox’s main priorities though. “I want to be able to clock into my shift and know that I’m supported, know that I’m not going to be running around with my head cut off, and know that I’m not going to be undercut,” she explained. “Having my hours cut in half is really heartbreaking.”

Briar also emphasized that coverage for transgender healthcare and tuition benefits need to be included in an eventual union contract. “The tuition benefit that Starbucks offers was one of the huge reasons that I pursued work with Starbucks,” she recounted.

Last week, bargaining delegates overwhelmingly voted to reject a contract proposal from Starbucks which only guaranteed a 2 percent annual raise. In a statement, delegate Michelle Eisen said SBWU “has presented a variety of ideas for how to get to an overall increase in pay, benefits, and hours for union baristas, but we have not seen a commitment from Starbucks to negotiate in good faith over those ideas and options.”

The company stressed in its public statement that Starbucks offers a relatively high level of benefits and accused the union of misleading delegates and “caus[ing] further delay in reaching a mutual agreement on the path forward.”

Over the past few years, Starbucks has been repeatedly ordered by the National Labor Relations Board to reopen stores it closed with “the intent to chill unionism at other store locations.” But when asked if they were worried about management illegally retaliating, both Briar and Nox said they simply can’t worry about it because right now there is really no other choice except unionizing.

“I think that regardless of what Starbucks chooses to do after the fact, illegal or not, there is no guarantee currently, so it doesn’t really matter because this is the only option,” Nox explained. “If I got fired today, there’s nothing that could happen. I couldn’t do anything about it. But having my union step up and have my back? At least I know that there’s a chance.”

In Briar’s opinion, Naomi, a union member at the Birmingham store, “is one of the examples that we’re trying to follow where you just keep plugging along.” APR spoke to Naomi earlier this month about what she described as an extended union busting campaign by one district manager.

Although, Briar and Nox both said that management at the Huntsville location has used a relatively light touch so far.

“The district manager did come in one day and pull a few people aside and talk to them,” Briar stated. “And I was not one of those people, but I did speak to all of them. And her attitude was basically, ‘Hey, I’m going to give you facts. The union will make promises, but there’s no guarantee they’ll follow through on their promises. And I’m just here to listen to any complaints that you might have.’”

“ My dad was in a union, my grandfather was in a union, my grandmother was in a union, and I grew up in the seventies and eighties here being told that unions were a great thing,” Briar declared. “ You know, everybody wants to talk about how unions are terrible and they don’t do anything for anybody.”

“ I just wanna make sure that false narrative is countered and we can actually show people what we can do when we band together and speak with one voice,” she said.

Nox similarly ended her interview with APR with a message to fellow Starbucks employees at any store “that has difficulty with management or who fear their job security.”

“There is a path forward, people have your back,” she stated, noting that well over 550 Starbucks locations have unionized. “It is so reassuring to know that I am walking into a collective with that much power and that it’s only growing.”

As for SBWU’s odds of success at the Huntsville store heading into next month, Briar told APR pro-union workers are quite confident, with a supermajority of the 18-person bargaining unit understood to be solid or likely yeses. The election will be conducted and certified by the NLRB.