Workers United And Starbucks Made ‘Significant Progress’ This Week

(CTN News) – There has been significant progress made in the contract talks between Starbucks and Workers United, the union that represents approximately 400 cafes this week, according to a joint news release on Friday.

According to the press release, the two sides discussed a grievance resolution process as well as details related to the union’s representation of Starbucks baristas, among other topics, during Wednesday and Thursday’s meetings in Atlanta.

It marked the first time Starbucks and Workers United had been able to negotiate together for nearly a year, during the two-day session. There had been an announcement in February that the bitter stalemate between the two sides was to be broken.

A union affiliated with the SEIU, which is a union affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, has been battling the coffee giant for more than two years. Workers United has generally advocated for higher wages, more consistent schedules and more consistent working hours, among a number of other initiatives.

It is likely that the talks held this week will be the closest to a collective bargaining agreement that any of Starbucks’ unionized locations have come to to date, which is only a small fraction of Starbucks’ U.S. footprint overall.

The road ahead still remains long, however, so this is not the end of the story.

The two sides said in a joint statement that there is still more to be done, but they are committed to working together on it.

According to the release, Starbucks and the union will again meet at the end of May in order to continue working together on the framework that will form the basis of every single-store contract in the future. When the foundation has been laid, individual stores will still need to negotiate and ratify their contracts once the foundation has been laid.

Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, but they do require that both parties bargain in good faith throughout the process.

There is a process by which workers who lose confidence in the union can petition to decertify after one year, which puts a ticking clock on negotiations.

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