Two Arkansas Starbucks Locations Vote to Unionize

Starbucks workers protest for unionization in New York (Shutterstock)

Baristas at the I-55 & Hollywood Starbucks location in Blytheville voted Wednesday to join Starbucks Workers United, joining a union that includes more than 11,000 baristas across 570+ stores nationwide.

The location joins multiple other stores in Arkansas that have voted to join the union, the most recent being the Cantrell & Riverfront location in Little Rock. Workers at that location voted 15-5 to join the union in January.

“I voted to unionize because we deserve better coverage during busy times, consistency instead of double standards and accountability when responsibilities are not being met and the workload falls on others,” Lee Towery, a barista at the Blytheville location, said in a press release from the union. “I truly love my work and my customers and I believe that with a contract we can finally have a real voice and true equality in our store.”

Workers have won, on average, a union election every other day since the union’s campaign began in late 2021.

Two locations in Fayetteville, MLK & I-540 and Wedington & N. Salem, are unionized. The I-30 & Alcoa store in Benton is unionized, as well as the Rodney Parham & Market store in Little Rock. The location at JFK & McCain in North Little Rock was unionized prior to its closing last year.

The core demands of the Starbucks Workers United, as stated in the press release, include:

• Better hours to improve staffing: Baristas report chronic understaffing while struggling to get enough hours to qualify for benefits or pay their bills
• Higher take-home pay: With starting wages at $15.25 in most states and average schedules of just 19 hours per week, which is just below the threshold to qualify for benefits, many baristas rely on SNAP and Medicaid
• Resolution of labor practice disputes: the release claimed Starbucks has been found guilty of more than 500 labor law violations

“Starbucks has changed drastically from when I started almost 4 years ago, and a lot of those changes have made finding joy in my role difficult, and this feeling isn’t unique,” Secily Eldridge, a Blytheville shift supervisor of four years, said in the release. “With constant changes in policy and standards, in conjunction with very limited communication and accountability from the company and management, it’s difficult to feel as though we are thriving in our roles.”

A statement from Starbucks said the company’s success starts and ends with its employees.

“We respect our partners right to choose, through a fair and democratic process, to be represented by a union or not to be represented by a union,” the statement said. “Any agreement needs to reflect the reality that Starbucks already offers the best job in retail, including more than $30 an hour on average in pay and benefits for hourly partners. The facts show people like working at Starbucks. Partner engagement is up, turnover is nearly half the industry average, and we get more than 1 million job applications a year.”