Workers at four more Starbucks shops in Eugene joined Starbucks Workers United on Thursday. Five Eugene shops held votes Thursday afternoon: 7th & Washington, Delta & Green Acres, EMU, Franklin & Villard, and Oakway Mall. With the workers at Oakway location voting down the union in a 7-4 vote. The newly organized shops join 29th & Willamette for five unionized Starbucks in Eugene.
The four shops that won their votes, did so by wide margins. 7th & Washington voted 12-1, Franklin voted 17-0, Delta 10-1, and EMU 19-0. The Oakway Starbucks, who lost their union vote, was the smallest of all of the locations with 17 workers that were eligible to vote in the election. With all other stores having between 23 and 31 eligible voters.
Jessica Jaszewski is one of the workers at 7th & Washington Starbucks. She said her and her co-workers at the location wer inspired after the union win in Buffalo last year, the first Starbucks to organize with Workers United. The 29th & Willamette Store filing in early January was a boon for them as they were able to seek advice from them on how to file their petition, which they did on Jan. 31.
The next step for the union at 7th & Washington, Jaszewski says, is to start expanding the organizing committee. Finding people that can help research and bargain the contract. She acknowledges that it will be an uphill fight to win a fair contract from Starbucks.
“I think there’s some hesitation just because, Starbucks is such a big corporation that they have put a lot of pushback just on this process so far. So whereas we have to go forward now and actually start the bargaining process. I think there’s some hesitation, but that everyone’s willing to kind of go forward with it and kind of push back and say, ‘Hey, these are the things that we want, and we’re going to fight to get them.’”
The NLRB will count the workers’ ballots from the two remaining Eugene Starbucks on May 5: Valley River Drive and W. 11th & Acorn Park.