Unhappy Starbucks employees in Hialeah are forming a union. It’s a first in South Florida.

Hialeah has become the first South Florida city where workers from the Starbucks coffeehouse chain are creating a union, with the goal of achieving better working conditions ranging from salary increases to improving the work environment.

Nearly 70% of the employees (29 out of 41) of the Starbucks coffee shop located at 583 W 49th St. in Hialeah, have registered with the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB) to start the union, said William Suárez, leader of this store’s unionizing effort.

NRLB rules state that in order to form a union, at least 30% of workers must sign union petition cards. The Hialeah branch is in the process of verifying the 28 cards received. If approved, they would go to an election on a date that has not yet been established.

Suárez, a 29-year-old Cuban-American, has been an employee of that Starbucks branch for a decade, and has been a night shift supervisor for the past year. He said there are four other Starbucks branches in Miami-Dade County in early stages of trying to unionize, although he wouldn’t identify their locations because “I want to prevent Starbucks from pressuring them as it happened in Hialeah,” he told el Nuevo Herald.

In recent weeks, seven employees from Memphis, Tennessee, and, more recently, one from Buffalo, New York, have been fired after being active as union promoters in their cities, The Washington Post and Newsweek reported, respectively.

In Hialeah, Suárez said that he was intimidated and pressured by his boss after giving an interview to Telemundo about the unionization of Starbucks. After the incident, he made a sworn statement and the case is being taken to the NRLB, to formally file a complaint.

“Since the workers expressed our intention to unionize, the corporation began to pressure us with visits by the district manager and corporate directors, and also reducing work hours. If we don’t work 20 hours a week, we don’t have access to benefits (health insurance, vacation, 401K) and since February, our shifts have been cut from 35 hours a week to less than 17 hours,” he explained.

A spokesperson for Starbucks denied that the corporation has retaliated against workers who form unions, such as reducing shifts or firing staff members who testify to the press..

He declined to give specific information about any store and wouldn’t say if the corporation was aware that a new union would be forming in Hialeah. He did acknowledge, in comments to el Nuevo Herald, that there are local meetings in many districts to “address the processes in a timely manner.”

More than 120 stores file union petitions

To date, 129 Starbucks branches have filed union petitions in 26 states, according to information from Starbucks Workers United. The first unions were created earlier this year at two stores located in Buffalo and Meza, Arizona. .

Marc Weinstein, a professor at Florida International University (FIU) Business School specializing in human resources, believes that one of the biggest difficulties for the Starbucks corporation is that it has not been able to devise a uniform campaign against unions because they are different from each other.

“They could say that the New York workers are involved in social justice, but in Hialeah they don’t want to politicize themselves, because it would be negative for the company,” the expert told el Nuevo Herald.

In Florida, Starbucks workers in three other cities besides Hialeah have requested the creation of a union — two stores in Tallahassee, one in Jacksonville and one in Oviedo, near Orlando.

The FIU scholar warned that the Starbucks brand could be impacted by union consolidation in two ways, “by the investment community, if they think the brand is doing too much for workers, and by the consumer base, if they think they are not doing enough. They are in a terrible position because despite being a progressive company, it is still an American company, with shares in the stock market,” he pointed out.

The Starbucks spokesperson acknowledged that the creation of unions represents a difficult era for the company due to the legal process involved but maintains that “we are listening and learning from the employees in these stores as we always do throughout the country.”

“From the beginning, we’ve been clear in our belief that we are better together as partners, without a union between us, and that conviction has not changed. Starbucks success—past, present, and future—is built on how we partner together, always with Our Mission and Values at our core,” the spokesperson explained in a follow-up written statement.

Weinstein noted that while Starbucks “shows itself to be a socially progressive company, it has been very aggressive in trying to stop unionization, but the most challenging thing is that workers are organizing in individual stores.”

Worsening of labor conditions

Kevin Paredes, a 20-year-old day shift supervisor, explained to el Nuevo Herald that when he started working at Starbucks two years ago, he felt full of energy, welcomed and respected. But more than three months ago he began to receive “psychological abuse, a decrease in shifts and changes in the rotation of days off without prior notice,” he claims.

As a shift supervisor like Suárez, Paredes used to work more than 30 hours a week, but now he works barely over 20 hours, he said.

“Things in Hialeah are not easy, that’s why rental unions arise, and now the ones at Starbucks. I’ve been living on my friends’ couch for a year because what Starbucks pays is not enough to rent a place. We need better salaries. We deserve rights and dignity,” Suárez stated.

New unionizing territory

“Unionization of Starbucks locations is new territory for the fast-food industry. Except for specific cases such as McDonald’s, there have been few movements in this sector. There is virtually no experience, and this is happening because of the current economic circumstances,” Weinstein said.

According to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the lowest unionization rates in the private sector during 2021 were in the finance, professional and technical, food and drink industries, while the largest unions were in utilities, film and sound recording, transportation, and storage.

The FIU professor believes that the success of the unions in Starbucks could impact other companies in the industry. “An indirect impact would be that other companies match or move their salaries closer to those achieved by the Starbucks union to avoid the formation of similar unions.”

In his opinion, the union’s greatest achievement would be to establish a wage standard for fast-food workers, which would put pressure on other companies in the same sector or otherwise make them vulnerable to unionization.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2021 non-unionized workers had median weekly earnings that represented on average 83% of the earnings of unionized workers ($975 vs. $1,169).

Paredes, the day manager, the son of Cuban and Honduran parents, is convinced that creating a union could change his life and the lives of his co-workers. In addition, “it will impact the community; everything will be for the better,” he concluded.

This story was originally published March 12, 2022 at 1:51 PM.

Verónica Egui Brito

el Nuevo Herald

305-376-2664

Verónica Egui Brito ha profundizado en temas sociales apremiantes y de derechos humanos. Cubre noticias dentro de la vibrante ciudad de Hialeah y sus alrededores para el Nuevo Herald y el Miami Herald. Se unió al Herald en 2022. Verónica Egui Brito has delved into pressing social, and human rights issues. She covers news within the vibrant city of Hialeah, and its surrounding areas for el Nuevo Herald, and the Miami Herald. Joined the Herald in 2022.