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Starbucks baristas in New York State are seeking to join a union. If workers vote for organizing, they will form the first Starbucks union in the United States — and may encourage other efforts to unionize the food service industry.

Voting at the three Starbucks stores in the Buffalo area will be conducted through postal elections. Voting will expire on December 8 and the votes will be counted the next day.

At the same time, Starbucks, which runs all 9,000 corporate stores, is urging workers not to join a union, and the stores are crowded with executives to hold "listening sessions" with workers.

The coffee chain tried to form unions in New York City and Philadelphia. But in June, a Starbucks-owned store in Canada formed a union. The current dynamics may be different. In a tight labor market, restaurant employers have been raising wages to retain and attract workers.

"You can't underestimate the pain caused by the pandemic. It makes people realize that they don't have much control over their lives, so they try to control their work and life through mutual organization and have a say in their work," Cornell Said Catherine Creighton, director of the Buffalo Joint Laboratory at the University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

It is rare to hear that restaurant workers join the union. It is worth noting that, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1.2% of the food and service industries in the US with 11.5 million employees are union members—the same percentage as the financial industry. Overall, 10.8% of American workers have joined a union.

Restaurants are not the easiest place to work, so why not let more workers join the union? Creighton said that on the one hand, workers usually do not stay at work long enough, which makes it more difficult for workers to organize. She said that employers like Starbucks will also add employees to the store to dilute the union supporters in the store and prompt the result of the vote.

This has been the case for decades. According to The Counter, a non-profit food news organization, after World War II, fast food chains proliferated and a large number of young people looking for part-time jobs emerged, which weakened the industry’s union concentration. Most importantly, some employees find that paying union dues is an obstacle because their wages are very low.

Starbucks baristas — 80 employees are eligible to vote — are seeking unions for more than just asking for higher wages.

According to the FAQ website of the Starbucks Workers’ Federation, workers hope to have the right to negotiate union contracts and have a say in working procedures and benefits. The Starbucks Workers’ Federation is a collective of Starbucks employees being organized in the Buffalo area. The website states: "We hope that Starbucks will be a place where employees can have a sustainable career and be rewarded for their hard work for the company over the years."

With employees in the food service industry resigning at a record rate, Starbucks' vote raises the question of whether a successful union can make restaurant work a long-term career choice. Creighton said that employers have a lot of control over the work and life of employees, and companies can assign employees to unfavorable jobs, let them make money in shifts, or change their schedules as they like. This may help explain why workers see work as temporary work in the first place.

The threat of union efforts has not disappeared from Starbucks. Last week, the Seattle-based coffee chain announced that it would increase workers’ wages, starting at $15 per hour in the summer of 2020. It also recently started testing shift applications to make it easier for workers to have more flexible arrangements.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the number of employees in the U.S. food and service industry. The article was updated with the correct number, 11.5 million.

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