The moment I officially gained the title of “coffee master” was a pretty unceremonious one. I was waiting for my shift to start, and my store manager approached me casually, smiling and holding out in his hands a nicely folded apron—black instead of the traditional green, and emblazoned near the top with my new, illustrious title. I transferred my name tag and pins to the new apron, and for the most part continued my shift as usual.
Still, It was a satisfying culmination of a couple of months of work. To earn the “coffee master” title at Starbucks, you have to be employed for a year, and you make your way through several courses of online training. You learn about the history of Starbucks, about how coffee is made, and how ethically-sourced Starbucks’ coffee is. You learn about the basics of coffee tasting, the origins of coffee in other countries, and about the time when Howard Schultz “brought” espresso to the Americas. At the end, you present all your work to the store manager, and, once approved, you earn your new title, as well as your exclusive black apron. And you do all of it on your own time.
In fact, it’s somewhat misleading that you earn a title at all, because you don’t get paid a penny more as a “coffee master” than you do as a normal barista.
But being stingy and incentivizing extra, above-and-beyond, unpaid work is pretty much par for the course for Starbucks. During the Covid pandemic, Starbucks discovered that they can operate stores with even fewer “partners” (Starbucks’ corporate lingo for employees) than they thought. Ever since then, coverage has gone down significantly, and working while understaffed is simply expected of us most of the time. The store is allowed enough scheduled hours every week to just barely struggle through, and if our manager schedules over that amount, they get reprimanded by higher-ups. Our store equipment is often malfunctioning or broken outright, and we get paid insultingly low wages, even as the store itself rakes in thousands of dollars a day. In fact, for most of my time there, Starbucks baristas in West Michigan were getting paid twelve dollars an hour, and it wasn’t until just a month or so ago that the nationwide pay raise to fifteen dollars an hour finally went through.
But this is only the absolute tip of the Starbucks labor iceberg. It’s likely you’ve seen some sort of news in the past year about the revolutionary movement taking place at Starbucks stores across the United States or about Starbucks’ own efforts to quell that movement.
When I started at Starbucks around this time last year, things were just beginning to gain momentum. Three stores in Buffalo, New York had already been discussing the idea of organizing for some months, and Starbucks had already sent in extra managers to try to dissuade the workers from even getting started. But in early December, the first vote count happened, and the first store in Buffalo became recognized by the National Labor Regulations Board as a unionized Starbucks.
Partners elsewhere were inspired by this initial victory, and dozens of stores around the country began their own internal discussions about trying to pull off what the Buffalo store had already done. Starbucks, in turn, began to take aggressive, unapologetic actions to suppress those efforts. Targeting stores that were considering unionizing, they began sending in managers to intimidate partners, cutting hours across the board, and announcing the introduction of new benefits—including the aforementioned pay raise—that would explicitly not be offered to unionized stores. Kevin Johnson, the CEO at the time, stepped down, as Howard Schultz, an infamously anti-union CEO of years past, took his place. And especially vocal union leaders were even outright fired, typically with unrelated, outlandish justifications. All this time, Starbucks maintained that accusations of them engaging in union-busting tactics were “categorically false”.
Over the next few months, efforts to unionize spread rapidly around the country, and more and more stores held successful votes, despite Starbucks’ best efforts to stop them. Predictably, Starbucks’ corporate union-busting attempts grew in scope and size, while the victimized partners diligently reported their actions to the NLRB.
As it turned out, much of what Starbucks was (and still is) attempting is outright illegal under national labor laws. Offering new benefits to employees but not to those who are unionized? Illegal. Sending in managers to hold captive audience meetings where they outnumber and intimidate partners? Illegal. Not allowing union representatives to be present during these meetings? Illegal. Flooding stores with fresh hires just before a vote count in an attempt to dilute the vote? Illegal. Dragging their feet as long as possible with unionized stores, refusing to negotiate a contract with the union? Illegal. And going so far as to completely shut down some stores that are on the verge of organizing? Extremely, undeniably illegal.
As of last month, the NLRB had issued more than 634 official labor law allegations against Starbucks for their various union-busting tactics, covering less than a quarter of the complaints that employees have filed across the country. Just a few weeks ago, a Federal judge ordered a Starbucks in Memphis, Tennessee to reinstate a group of seven workers that were fired in one desperate sweep all the way back in February—a group that had already become known as the Memphis 7, and had since risen to major roles of leadership and union advocacy in the absence of their jobs.
Meanwhile, the total number of successfully unionized Starbucks in the country has reached 220 stores in thirty-three states, with another ninety-eight filed but waiting for a vote. Unionized stores have held more than fifty-five strikes across seventeen states. This time last year, those numbers were all zero.
You’d think that this entire phenomenon would be a constant topic of discussion in any Starbucks store, and it’s evident that in some stores, it is. But where I work, people rarely bring it up and typically only in response to something in the weekly announcements that mentions unions. Still, that uncomfortable discussion doesn’t last long, and it’s not difficult to see why. For every one Starbucks store where whispers of organizing gradually blossom into full-blown labor strikes, there are many more where the threat of retaliation fully eclipses the workers’ concerns. Most people working at Starbucks are young people with already precarious finances, and picking a fight with a multi-billion dollar corporation isn’t exactly their first impulse. They have a lot to lose, and they know how quickly they could lose it.
Currently, I’m the only “coffee master” at my store who isn’t also in a management position. I think the title is meant to indicate my passion for barista work and, implicitly, my investment in Starbucks culture. In a way, it’s the quintessential path for the loyal, obedient Starbucks worker who is passionate about their work but doesn’t necessarily demand getting paid for it.
So there is some small irony in wearing the black apron while also being the most vocally pro-union partner in the store. I know I’m not the only pro-union partner in the store, but I’m probably the one with the least to lose. It’s easy for me to talk shit—I already have my degree, and I won’t lose my healthcare if I lose my job. I love the idea of fighting back against this corrupt company, and if I’m being completely honest, I love the idea of being fired for a cause I know is right.
But I also know that unionizing, on principle and in practice, isn’t about me. It isn’t about my potential martyrdom, and it isn’t about my own personal moral self-actualization. It is, however, about the real, material conditions and mental health of my coworkers, both of which would be explicitly threatened in the pursuit of a union.
My coworkers don’t want to talk about unionizing, and most of them don’t seem eager to learn more about it, either. I can’t say I blame them.
Philip Rienstra (‘21) majored in writing and music and has plans to pursue a career in publishing. They are a recovering music snob, a fruit juice enthusiast, and a big fan of the enneagram. They’re currently living in St. Paul with their spouse, Heidi.
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Thanks for this, Philip!