Workers at a Triangle Starbucks will vote on a union. Here’s what they want.
Around 10 a.m., the music stopped.
Shift supervisor Annie Pederson served the last person in line and came from behind the counter to make an announcement about the workers’ upcoming union election.
Matt Wynne, another shift supervisor, read a letter to the dozen customers in the store laying out the workers’ grievances.
“We’re expected to clean dishes, write on cups, take more time for personalized customer interactions — all while being deliberately understaffed,” Wynne read from the letter.
“And this is especially frustrating knowing that [CEO and Chairman Brian R.] Niccol has made nearly $100 million in the nine months that he has been CEO,” he read.
Several customers applauded once he finished. The employees got back to work and an Ed Sheeran song filled the room.
Twenty-two workers at the Starbucks on East Franklin Street will vote on whether to unionize on June 30.
Wynne said workers want more consistent hours, better staffing and to be treated with dignity by Starbucks. Their letter also outlined safety concerns, including verbal abuse, physical altercations between customers and drug use.
Alex Washburne, a shift supervisor, said the store’s previous manager fought for having a security guard after a man in the store was stabbed with a pen. A security guard was hired and initially worked whenever the store was open, but was later phased out, he said.
Police have been to called to the store 112 times in the past 12 months, most often for trespassing, according to the town of Chapel Hill.
“There’s been multiple instances where I’ve just been terrified, to be quite honest with you, because there was someone in here threatening us,” Washburne said.
A Starbucks spokesperson said it respects its employees’ right to unionize but did not respond to a question from The News and Observer about the Chapel Hill workers’ safety concerns.
“Starbucks is dedicated to partner-centric scheduling and providing partners with hours that align with their individual needs and preferences is a top priority,” the spokesperson said. “This is reflected in Starbucks commitment to diligently create work schedules that carefully balance the availability of our partners with the staffing needs of individual stores.”
More Starbucks are unionizing across the country
To win an election, a union needs a simple majority of workers to vote for it, according to the National Labor Relations Board. If successful, the Chapel Hill Starbucks would be represented by Starbucks Workers United, according to the election notice.
A Starbucks in Fayetteville voted 12-0 to unionize its store of 19 workers on June 16, marking six Starbucks stores represented by Workers United in North Carolina, according to the union. Over 600 stores out of 17,164 across the United States are unionized., the union says.
“Partners around the country found we are experiencing the same, systemic problems: short staffing and unpredictable scheduling; low wages; unaffordable health care; harassment; broken equipment; unfair discipline,” Starbucks Workers United’s website states.
Jeffrey Hirsch, a law professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, said it is unusual to see so many stores unionizing now, but after the pandemic, service workers are stressed out and organizing.
“They’re a little bit of a victim of their own hiring practices,” Hirsch said. “They tended to hire a lot of young, socially activist type employees. However, there’s a lot of overlap between that group and employees who might be open to unionization.”
Hirsch said for the past two decades, big companies like Starbucks have relied on technology to identify when demand is highest and how many staffers stores will need at any given time — to the disadvantage of workers.
Starbucks’ website says it uses a “robust data set to forecast store-specific staffing needs throughout each day.”
North Carolina is a right-to-work state, meaning employees do not have to join a union at a unionized business or pay union dues – even if the union represents them. The state had the lowest union membership rate of any state in 2024 at 2.4 percent.
Hirsch said Starbucks workers who unionize now may have an advantage — Workers United is currently negotiating a collective bargaining deal with Starbucks that would cover all stores, meaning stores would not have to negotiate individual agreements.
Starbucks became more open to negotiating with Workers United after CEO Howard Schultz stepped down in 2023. But once Niccol took over in September 2024, Starbucks reduced raises for all employees, according to Bloomberg.
The company also has a new dress code that dictates the colors of shirts, pants, socks and shoes that employees can wear. Starbucks Workers United said the dress code should have been negotiated, and employees at 75 U.S. stores have staged walkouts, the Associated Press reported.
This story was originally published June 20, 2025 at 8:00 AM.
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