The reasons for unionization vary from store to store, but workers have voiced concern about inadequate staffing, health and safety issues, frustrations related to customers, and a desire to have a greater say in the workplace.Brian Nuzzo, a 35-year-old former shift supervisor at a now-unionized store in Rochester, New York, worked at Starbucks for five and a half years before he was fired for opening the store alone. Nuzzo told VICE News that on March 4, he clocked in early because he needed to use the store’s resources to “make a plan” for opening. That morning, he said, three co-workers had called out sick after having COVID-like symptoms. “I broke the policy; I’m not gonna argue that,” Nuzzo said. “But they didn’t really care about the extenuating circumstances.” Nuzzo told VICE News he believes his firing fueled support for the union, and last week, his former store voted 10-3 to unionize. “I hate sounding like a martyr, but I think me getting fired kind of pushed some people on the fence to vote yes,” Nuzzo said earlier this month, shortly after his former co-workers won the vote. “If they saw that someone like me who has never really done anything wrong in five years is fired with no warning or anything, it’s kind of like, ‘Maybe we need some kind of protections for our jobs.’”“If they saw that someone like me who has never really done anything wrong in five years is fired with no warning or anything, it’s kind of like, ‘Maybe we need some kind of protections for our jobs.’”
Starbucks also said that Krempa “was disrespectful to [her manager] during the conversation” and “raised her voice” at the manager. Krempa, on the other hand, said her manager attempted to talk to her when she was performing duties such as working the drive-thru and cleaning the oven, and Krempa claims she only firmly asked the manager to allow her to do her job. Krempa said that before this incident, she had always worn the pins—which Krempa said included one that read “Be Kind,” another displaying her pronouns, and a suicide prevention pin which said “It’s OK not to be OK” and is illustrated by two ghosts hugging each other—with no complaints. She also said she was wearing four, not six as her manager claimed. She later filed an unfair labor practice with the NLRB for retaliation. This kind of pushback, workers said, is happening around the country. “I’ve seen [co-workers] wear stuff they’ve been wearing for months and months, and nobody ever cared," Madison Barriga, a 24-year-old barista at a store in Olympia, Washington, told VICE News. “And then the union started popping up, and all of a sudden, they started giving verbal warnings about dress code and more warnings about time and attendance.” In response to allegations that Starbucks was selectively enforcing its policies against pro-union workers, Borges said that employees’ “interest in a union does not exempt them from the standards we've always held” and that the company will continue enforcing our policies consistently for all [workers].”Krempa admits that she swore but said that at the time, the incident wasn’t treated as a big deal.
Jeffrey Hirsch, a labor law professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill, told VICE News that generally speaking, it’s “very typical” for companies, both in unionization and employment discrimination cases, to claim they have valid reasons for disciplining and firing workers and thus have not broken federal labor laws.Since September 2021, when workers in Buffalo went public with their intent to organize a union, there have been 94 unfair labor practice charges—which are allegations of federal labor law violations—filed against Starbucks
Sanchez ultimately quit, but told VICE News that she was “pushed into resigning.”Workers across the country have accused Starbucks of reducing hours in retaliation for organizing.
“We don’t believe having a union will meaningfully change or solve the problems you’ve identified in your stores,” the site says. “We know we aren’t perfect, but we believe our challenges are best addressed by working together.”
In the wake of the firing of Doran—a trans woman who told VICE News she initially got the job for health insurance that covered facial feminization surgery—Overland Park Starbucks workers went on strike. And on April 5, the store voted 6-1 to unionize, but Starbucks challenged seven ballots—delaying a result for now.The employees who spoke with VICE News all voiced a similar sentiment: Instead of dissuading people from voting for the union, the firings and alleged retaliation had only strengthened their solidarity. A pro-union barista in New Jersey said that due to the recent firings, “all of us have been more on edge and worried about our job safety.” “It’s incredibly disheartening that fighting for basic rights in the workplace can threaten our income we need to survive,” the worker said in a text message. “Still, with being worried about our jobs, most of us are incredibly confident about the actual unionization process.”Adeosun, the barista in Olympia, agreed. “We’re just really unimpressed, but not at all terrified,” she said of Schultz’s return to the company. “We’re going to keep going as usual. We have a majority at our store, so we’re confident we're gonna get the vote.”The union drive has so far been overwhelmingly successful in the stores where elections have been held. More than 20 stores have voted to unionize thus far, including several recent unanimous votes, in Boston, Pittsburgh, and Eugene, Oregon. Just two—one in Buffalo in December, and another in Springfield, Virginia, last week—have voted against unionization. “This is not us trying to assault this company,” Krempa said. “It’s really just the workers trying to hold the company accountable, and we should be able to do that, and they keep [depicting] us as these assailants.”Correction: Angel Krempa is 21-years-old, not 23.The employees who spoke with VICE News all voiced a similar sentiment: Instead of dissuading people from voting for the union, the firings and alleged retaliation had only strengthened their solidarity.