A version of this article first appeared in The Deep Dish, the members-only monthly newsletter by Civil Eats that features in-depth reporting on food and the environment.
IfIf all goes as they’ve planned, Alendra Harris and her co-workers at Starbucks in Superior, Colorado, will hold a union election this spring and then, soon after, negotiate a contract that includes higher wages, more comprehensive benefits, and better staff training programs, among other improvements.
“People just aren’t getting paid enough,” said Harris, who has worked for the coffee giant for about four-and-a-half years. “Especially since [we’ve] shifted toward service-based industries, these service jobs should provide at least middle-class wages.”
Harris said she had been thinking about poverty wages for food workers and broader inequities for years, but like dozens of others around the country, she was finally inspired to act in December, when a group of employees in Buffalo, New York, successfully unionized the first Starbucks.
Now, it’s bigger than that, she said. “Solidarity across the board and across the industry is what’s going to make this happen.”
Indeed, the list is growing: Baristas making caramel macchiatos at Starbucks; farmworkers tending grapes at a Long Island vineyard; meatpacking workers processing chickens in Texas; and factory workers boxing chocolate bars at Hershey are all fighting for union representation and taking a stand for workers’ rights.
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