1st Starbucks union formed in the Triangle after Durham workers vote to join movement
A Starbucks store in South Durham became the first in the Triangle to join more than 370 Starbucks locations nationwide in forming a union.
On Monday, the store’s baristas and shift supervisors comfortably approved the union by a tally of 16 to 2. Their shop is located in the Renaissance Shopping Center across the road from the Streets at Southpoint mall.
“As a collective group, we educated ourselves on how forming our own union could help us and realized that is was time to stand up,” said Russell Calzaretta, 32, a shift supervisor at the Durham location.
With the election win, the pay and working conditions of the 23-member staff will be collectively bargained by Workers United, which has recently spearheaded mass organizing efforts at Starbucks. The Durham victory occurred nearly two years to the day the first U.S. Starbucks voted to unionize in Buffalo, NY.
The Durham election was the seventh at a North Carolina Starbucks, where results for Workers United have been mixed. The union had previously won twice — in Boone and Wilmington — but has had four failed campaigns in Raleigh, Durham, Moore County and Asheville.
“It has been a more difficult state for our region,” said Camden Mitchell, a regional Starbucks organizer for Workers United. “It’s a store-by-store campaign and a store-by-store scenario.”
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In 2022, North Carolina again came second-to-last for union membership, ahead of only South Carolina (2023 state rankings come out next month.) North Carolina is a right-to-work state, which means no employees have to pay union dues even if the union represents their workforce.
Mitchell said scheduling concerns have motivated Starbucks staff to seek unions.
“Inconsistent shifts,” he said. “Issues with overworking because of understaffed stores, particularly around this time of year during their peak seasons.”
On Nov. 16, thousands of employees across more than 200 stores staged a walkout on “Red Cup Day,” one of the chain’s most popular sales day of the year.
In a statement to The News & Observer, Starbucks said “as a company, we believe that our direct relationship as partners is core to the culture and experiences we create in our stores.”
However, the company acknowledged “that a subset of partners feels differently.”
This story was originally published December 11, 2023 at 6:34 PM.
