Patch AM Rewind: 'Understaffed' Starbucks Workers React To Unionizing

East Meadow NY

16 June, 2022

12:22 PM

Description

WESTBURY, NY — With a 23-0 vote, Starbucks workers at The Gallery in Westbury Plaza decided to form a union. "We love our job, but we want to serve the customers to the best of our abilities," Jennifer Dunn, one of the organizers of Starbucks Workers United, a guest on "Patch AM," said. They wanted their voices heard by corporate and the public. The Westbury location joins a Starbucks in Massapequa in creating a union, along with dozens of others nationally. The biggest problem baristas faced was getting hours cut post-holiday season, causing the store to be "understaffed and overworked, when we didn't have to be," Dunn said. Once the union process started, another organizer/worker, Ashley Larsen, said the company tried to scare employees from moving forward. "'You might not get these benefits if you're a unionized store,'" Larsen found out from the coffee brand's corporate level. "They can't take away our benefits once we unionize." Watch the full "Patch AM" interview below.