For the first 10 years that Michelle Eisen worked as a Starbucks barista in Buffalo, N.Y., it never occurred to her to form a union. But the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything—including her opinion of the company she had long admired.
“We were tired and we were scared,” Eisen said at a Brookings event last week. “And we were feeling incredibly undervalued and unappreciated.”
Eisen contrasted the sacrifices and struggles that she and her colleagues endured with her employer’s financial success—a sentiment we heard echoed across dozens of interviews with frontline workers since the start of the pandemic.
“We are being called ‘essential workers’ and we are putting our health and safety at risk to work through this pandemic,” said Eisen. “And we’re hearing our CEO on CNN and other financial shows announce these record-breaking profits…And I know that this money is coming from my labor and my coworkers’ labor. I’ve got co-workers who are crying in the back room because they don’t know if they’re going to be able to pay their rent and put groceries in their fridge that week.”
In summer 2021, on the brink of quitting, Eisen instead joined her colleagues in filing to form Starbucks’ first-ever union. Their successful vote that December sparked a nationwide movement that now counts over 50 victories, including several successful votes this week alone. Since August 2021, workers at more than 200 additional Starbucks locations have petitioned to hold union elections.
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