The union has petitioned for elections at around 200 outlets throughout the country.
On Friday, workers at all three Ithaca, New York, sites of the coffee company voted almost overwhelmingly to join the union Workers United. The results for the three shops were 19-1, 13-1, and 15-1.
Meanwhile, employees at a business in Overland Park, Kansas, voted 6-1 to unionize, though numerous ballots have been contested and might yet influence the decision. The union stated that it expected to win after the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency in charge of overseeing union elections, reviews the legitimacy of the contested ballots.
The election successes on Friday followed three other victories the day before, when employees at a group of Starbucks locations in Buffalo and Rochester, New York, decided to unionize. Following this week's vote counts, the Starbucks Workers United campaign has won 16 elections and lost only once, and it now represents hundreds of workers across numerous states.
Overall, the campaign has filed for elections at around 200 outlets across the country, implying that many more will opt to unionize. Starbucks has around 9,000 corporate-owned outlets in the United States, and these are the country's first to have union representation.
Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) complimented the campaign on its success on Friday, calling it "a huge example to workers all throughout the country."
Starbucks has spoken out against the union effort and attended meetings with employees to encourage them to vote no. Starbucks has been able to postpone elections by filing appeals with the NLRB, saying that employees should vote in regional elections rather than for individual locations, but the labor board has rejected Starbucks' claims.
Several workers who were union advocates were dismissed by the corporation, including seven from a store in Memphis, Tennessee. Workers United has filed accusations with the labor board, claiming that the firings are punitive and intended to weed out union supporters. Starbucks has stated that the Memphis employees were dismissed because they violated company rules by letting non-employees inside the store after hours.
According to Stockopedia, the labor board has ruled that the Memphis firings were illegal and that it wants to file a lawsuit against Starbucks unless the corporation agrees to settle. Workers may be rehired as a result of the labor board's activities.
The Starbucks effort began last year in Buffalo, where the first store was unionized in December. Since then, the organizing campaign has taken off like wildfire, with the union launching new election petitions every week.
Former CEO Howard Schultz has returned to the company's management as it faces the organizing drive. In a recent meeting with employees, Schultz stated that he was not anti-union, but he depicted the union drive in a negative light.
"We can't ignore what's going on in the country as it relates to firms all throughout the country being besieged in various ways by the danger of unionization," he added.
Starbucks' unionization attempt coincides with Amazon's expanding organizing campaign. Workers at the JFK8 plant in Staten Island, New York, voted 2,654 to 2,131 in favor of joining the new Amazon Labor Union, becoming the company's first in the United States. Workers there withstood a ferocious anti-union effort led by Amazon executives and outside consultants.
Amazon has already indicated that it wants to file a lawsuit and have the election results overturned.
