UFCW 3000 is disappointed to learn of the latest union-busting activity by the Starbucks Corporation, which has announced closures at ten locations which either organized or were engaged in the process of organizing with Starbucks Workers United. The company’s blatant disregard for workers’ free and fair choice to form a union is disgusting and we condemn the union-busting behavior by Howard Schultz and Starbucks management.

At UFCW 3000 we stand with the more than 200 Starbucks stores which have organized with Starbucks Workers United and will do anything we can to support the courageous workers who have stood up to this greedy corporation. We continue to wholeheartedly back these workers in their efforts to achieve a fair contract with Starbucks management. Our members and staff have walked the picket lines alongside striking Starbucks workers in Washington state and we will continue to aid them however we can.

We understand the most recent store closure in Seattle, at the Holman Road location, is slated to become a licensed location operated by the Kroger Corporation. As a result of our hard-fought victories against Kroger over the years, all workers hired into QFC stores become union members. As such, workers in the reopened location will receive the pay increases, contract, health care, pension, just cause, and other rights and benefits of a UFCW 3000 union contract. We demand that Starbucks work with Kroger to provide the Holman Road workers a just transition to the QFC-operated store and insist that any currently employed Starbucks worker be offered continued and uninterrupted employment and full credit for all time worked for Starbucks.

Furthermore, UFCW 3000 calls on Howard Schulz and Starbucks management to cease and desist from any further store closures and bargain fairly with the organized workers of Starbucks Workers United. We will continue to connect our own member leaders who work at the licensed Starbucks stores with the worker leaders of Starbucks Workers United, because when we fight together, we win. These member leaders of UFCW 3000 working inside our Starbucks union grocery stores have some of the best union contract language in the nation and it shows that a Starbucks store and a quality union contract can work just fine together.