Baristas and shift supervisors at two North Carolina Starbucks voted to unionize this month, joining a nationwide labor campaign at the largest U.S. coffee chain.
On Dec. 18, Starbucks employees at a store off U.S. 64 in Apex overwhelmingly agreed to have the Workers United union negotiatetheir wages and benefits. In a separate election the same day, Starbucks workers in the town of Wilkesboro also approved the union.
“Personally, I am pretty overwhelmed by the understaffing issue we face,” said Ian Gordon, a barista at the Apex store. “Our hope is to get more people on the floor at a time.”
North Carolina now has five organized Starbucks locations, including another Triangle store in Durham’s RenaissanceCenter, across the road from The Streets at Southpoint mall. North Carolina is a right-to-work state, meaning no employee will have to pay union dues or even join the union ifthe union represents their store.
More than 500 Starbucks have unionized in the three years since a shop in Buffalo, New York, launched the movement. Overall, the chain has over 10,000 U.S. stores.