CHESTERFIELD, Mo. — Employees at the Starbucks location at Clarkson and Baxter Road in Chesterfield announced Monday they are joining their colleagues in filing for a union election.
This location will be the fifth store in the St. Louis area where employees have filed for a union election. Employees at the Starbucks location at 1500 S. Lindbergh Blvd. in Ladue were the first in the St. Louis area to file for a union election, at the beginning of April.
The local workers' desire to form a union follows a wave across Starbucks locations nationwide where employees have filed for union elections.
The Starbucks unionization push began last year, when two locations in Buffalo, New York, filed for representation. Since then, workers at more than 150 company-owned Starbucks locations have followed suit, according to CNBC. The Buffalo locations have since became unionized.
The Chicago & Midwest Regional Joint Board of Workers United (CMRJB), a labor union and affiliate of Washington, D.C.-based Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is organizing the employees who work at Starbucks' 1720 Clarkson Road location in Chesterfield.
Workers United represents more than 86,000 workers in the apparel, textile, industrial laundry, food service, manufacturing, warehouse distribution and nonprofit industries in the U.S. and Canada, according to its website. Workers United represents all of the Starbucks locations nationally seeking unionization, with CMRJB representing the St. Louis-area locations.
The Starbucks employees' demands include increasing the minimum wage to $20, 20% raises for workers, setting up debit-card tipping options, raising pay for baristas on short-staffed shifts, annual cost-of-living raises and improved health care benefits, among others, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal.
Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, who returned to the Seattle-based company April 4 as interim CEO, made it clear in addressing stakeholders and employees in a town hall last week that he does not support the movement, saying, "We didn't get here by having a union."
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