Starbucks Corp employees voted for unionization at one of two New York restaurants where ballots have been counted on Thursday afternoon, with the fate of a third store yet to be decided.
The first store’s vote was 19-8 in favor of unionization. If formally certified by the National Labor Relations Board, the agency conducting the elections, it would establish a union foothold among the coffee chain’s thousands of corporate-run US locations. The second store’s vote was 12-8 against forming a union.
The tallying of votes from the trio of sites follows a four-week mail-in voting period. Workers at those three Buffalo-region locations petitioned in August to join the Service Employees International Union affiliate Workers United, which has recently filed for additional elections at three more New York sites and another in Arizona.
Photo: Reuters
The victory, a potential watershed for a labor movement that in recent decades has hardly ever prevailed in such elections at the largest nonunion employers in the US, could inspire a flurry of new organizing efforts, as well as a fierce and lengthy struggle for the store’s employees to secure a collective bargaining agreement.
Nelson Lichtenstein, a historian who directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California at Santa Barbara, said the news might spark another 50 to 100 Starbucks shops to push for their own elections.
“When and if that happens, it will be much more difficult for Starbucks and its anti-union law firms to scurry about the country suppressing these insurrections,” Lichtenstein said via e-mail.
After ballots are tallied at each store, both sides would have the chance to submit allegations of misconduct and offer arguments against officially certifying the results.
An acting regional labor board director in October ruled that workers could vote store-by-store at the first three locations, meaning that Starbucks would be required to collectively bargain if a majority of voters at any one of those sites supported unionization.?
The company sought to derail the elections before they were carried out, arguing that any contest should instead involve at least all 20 of the region’s stores — which would have made it more difficult for the union to prevail.
Starbucks also pleaded unsuccessfully with the labor board to intervene and quash the mailing of ballots last month.
Last month, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz even went to speak to workers at the New York stores.
In a letter to employees Tuesday, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson wrote that “we respect the process that is underway and, independent of any outcome in these elections, we will continue to stay true to our mission and values.”
In a labor board complaint filed last month, the union alleged that Starbucks management has responded to organizing efforts “by engaging in a campaign of threats, intimidation, surveillance” and other illegal activity. Starbucks has said that it strictly complies with labor laws.
POWERING UP: PSUs for AI servers made up about 50% of Delta’s total server PSU revenue during the first three quarters of last year, the company said Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) reported record-high revenue of NT$161.61 billion (US$5.11 billion) for last quarter and said it remains positive about this quarter. Last quarter’s figure was up 7.6 percent from the previous quarter and 41.51 percent higher than a year earlier, and largely in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$160 billion. Delta’s annual revenue last year rose 31.76 percent year-on-year to NT$554.89 billion, also a record high for the company. Its strong performance reflected continued demand for high-performance power solutions and advanced liquid-cooling products used in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers,
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
RSS