Another Starbucks in Philly unionizes

Workers at a Center City Starbucks voted to unionize this week. The coffee shop, located at 16th and Walnut Streets, is the 13th Starbucks in the Philadelphia area and the 34th in Pennsylvania to join Starbucks Workers United, which represents over 10,000 Starbucks employees across the country.

The Philly location is the latest to join the union amid a national wave of organizing efforts by workers employed at Starbucks that began in 2021 in Buffalo, N.Y. More than 470 Starbucks locations have unionized since, in 45 states and the District of Columbia, according to Starbucks Workers United.

“I’m really happy we, the store, got together and made a change. We’re moving forward like a team, and it’s good to not only feel the unity within us, but to actually see it as well,” Anthal Arizaga, a shift supervisor at the Center City location, said in a statement about the Monday decision.

“At Starbucks we believe that our direct relationship as partners is core to the experiences we create in our stores, and we respect our partners rights to have a choice on the topic of unions,” Starbucks spokesperson Jay Go Guasch, said in a statement shared via email.

Since Starbucks employees began organizing, the company has been accused of not bargaining in good faith for a contract, and charges have been filed by Starbucks Workers United with the National Labor Relations Board, The Inquirer reported in 2023.

By the end of 2024, Starbucks hoped to have contracts ratified, according to a statement from the company, the New York Times reported in February. In April, union leaders and company representatives met at the bargaining table, and the union says they met again last month.

Noah Dixon, a barista at the newly unionized Philly location who has been working there a little over a year, says he’s feeling good about the next steps with the union.

“We have to put a lot of pressure on Starbucks to actually come to the bargaining table and provide real change, because otherwise they won’t,” he said.

He has been excited to see how the union is supporting workers on the ground, he says.

“Learning what Starbucks Workers United really is representing was really exciting to me,” said Dixon.

The news of the newly unionized Starbucks location comes as other coffee shops in Philadelphia have been organizing recently, with mixed results.

Workers employed at three Bluestone Lane coffee shops in Philadelphia unionized in May, but two out of four Ultimo coffee shops left their barista union in January before a first contract was reached.

In June, real estate developer Ori Feibush closed all three of his OCF Coffee House locations shortly after workers informed him that they intended to unionize. Feibush explained that the business hadn’t been profitable and noted increased costs, reduced sales, and expiring leases.

This article has been updated to include a statement from Starbucks