A hearing for the history books: The resolutely anti-union architect of the modern Starbucks faces the outspoken champion of the union movement in Congress.
Starbucks stores from coast to coast. An electric vehicle battery plant. The first Amazon warehouse in the U.S. All kinds of workplaces unionized in 2022, but winning elections is only the first step.
Baristas at Starbucks as well as independently owned coffeehouses have driven a surge in union organizing. They see their activism as benefiting not just themselves, but working people broadly.
An Amazon sorting center on Staten Island in New York has voted against unionizing, a month after a larger Amazon warehouse across the street voted to join the Amazon Labor Union.
Once seen as among the most generous of employers, Starbucks is now grappling with disillusionment among its workers. Since December, 20 stores have unionized with more filing for elections every day.
Starbucks workers at 15 additional stores are petitioning for a a union election, pushing to organize cafes across the country. In Buffalo, the first store to unionize is negotiating a contract.
Voting is ending at three stores around Buffalo, N.Y. Starbucks had flown in executives to the area and asked federal officials to delay the ballot count.
Amazon workers in New York plan to take an initial step toward forming a union. Organizers say they have collected some 2,000 signatures for a union vote from warehouse workers on Staten Island.
A federal labor official found that Amazon's anti-union tactics may have tainted last spring's voting process sufficiently to scrap its results. Workers had rejected unionization more than 2-to-1.
Amazon avoided the prospect of a first unionized warehouse in America, where it's now the second-largest private employer. The vote in Alabama had prompted new interest in unions across the country.
The results will determine whether Amazon gets its first U.S. warehouse union. It's been dubbed one of the most consequential union elections in recent history.
