Does the announcement earlier this month that workers at the Starbucks at 4824 John F. Kennedy Blvd. in North Little Rock were seeking to unionize signal a trend? That remains to be seen.
But if a union push there is successful, it will become at least the fourth Starbucks store in Arkansas to unionize in the last 18 months, and it will also be part of a larger unionization drive of Starbucks shops across the country. Starbucks, based in Seattle, had more than 38,000 stores in 80 countries in 2023, with more than 16,000 of those in the U.S. and about 60 in Arkansas.
The vote at the North Little Rock store was scheduled for May 16, a day after this issue went to press, but two workers I talked to last Monday voiced confidence that their co-workers would vote to join Starbucks Workers United. Starbucks Workers United is a part of Workers United, and Workers United is an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.
Savvy Scott of Little Rock is a barista at the 4824 JFK Starbucks, where she has worked two years. “I feel we’re very knowledgeable about our rights and the potential this partnership could bring, so I’m very confident about our vote,” she said.
The store has 14 workers, 13 baristas and shift supervisors and one manager, Scott said. Quinnton Ayodele, a shift supervisor at the store, echoed Scott’s confidence about the outcome of the vote. Ayodele of Little Rock has worked there since September 2022. “I think it will go through,” he said.
In March, workers at the Starbucks at 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road in Little Rock voted 12-2 to join Starbucks Workers United, and in January 2023, the Starbucks at 2117 W. Martin Luther King Drive in Fayetteville voted to be represented by the union. In November 2022, the Starbucks at Wedington Drive and North Salem Road in Fayetteville became the first Starbucks in Arkansas to vote to unionize.
This latest nationwide unionization drive began in December 2021 when a Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, voted to unionize. Since then, the momentum has continued, and now Starbucks Workers United says it represents more than 10,000 Starbucks workers at 428 stores in 43 states and Washington, D.C.
In April, representatives from Starbucks and Starbucks Workers United resumed contract negotiations, ending a lengthy stalemate.
Arkansas is a “right-to-work” state; workers at a company with a union do not have to join the union.
The issues driving the unionization push, Scott said, were “major turnover in upper management and the breakdown in communication that came after that. A lot of unsustainable changes were made that left the partners, especially myself, feeling unsupported and that there weren’t really solutions to the problems at hand. There were issues with security, cleanliness, staffing and hours.”
“Everyone’s main focus is different, Ayodele said. “People are focused on wanting raises, wanting more benefits, more hours and things of that nature,” but “really, the main focus is representation, as well as wanting to feel as though we have a voice in our store.”
Being assigned enough hours is a major consideration, both said. Starbucks offers benefits at 20 hours a week, but not every worker gets those hours. “People have got to pay their bills, and when we’re only getting 15 hours a week, it’s like, I can’t really afford to pay my bills on 15 hours a week,” Ayodele said.
A Starbucks spokesman, asked for comment, said in a statement: “At Starbucks we believe that our direct relationship as partners is core to the experiences we create in our stores, and we respect our partners’ rights to have a choice on the topic of unions. We are committed to delivering on our promise to offer a bridge to a better future to all Starbucks partners.”
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