PAGE 10 | December 17, 2021 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
UNION ORGANIZING
Happy Holidays
Bob Tackett
Executive Secretary-Treasurer
Rob Martineau
Position 5
Scott Zadow
Will Lukens
President
Position 6
Everice Moro
Ed Barnes
1st vice president
Position 7
Dave Tully
Rose Etta
Venetucci
2nd vice president
Tracey Powers
Position 8
Position 1
Darren Hamann
Position 2
Jaimie Rodriguez
Position
Willy Myers
Position 9
Mike Bridges
Position 11
Shirley Block
Jodi Guetzloe
Position 15
Position 4
F ROM T HE O FFICERS AND E XECUTIVE B OARD OF THE
N ORTHWEST O REGON L ABOR C OUNCIL
Buffalo baristas form first
Starbucks store union
Thirty down, 235,000 to go. On
Dec. 9, mail ballots were
counted showing that workers at
a Starbucks store in Buffalo,
New York voted 19 to 8 to
unionize with Starbucks Work-
ers United, an affiliate of Serv-
ice Employees International
Union (SEIU).
The store was one of three in
Buffalo to hold union elections.
The union lost 12 to 8 at a sec-
ond store, but appeared to win
15 to 9 at a third store, except
that vote results were delayed
pending a challenge by the
union as to whether seven other
workers were employees of the
store. Meanwhile, the union has
asked the National Labor Rela-
tions Board (NLRB) to hold a
union vote at three more Buffalo
locations.
Starbucks has fought union-
ization at its stores for decades.
This time, company lawyers
pushed to have all 20 Buffalo-
area stores vote as one unit, but
the NLRB said the store-by-
store votes that union supporters
proposed were acceptable.
Company execs, even billion-
aire shareholder and former
CEO Howard Schultz, trekked
to Buffalo to talk workers out of
unionizing
Some workers at Starbucks
kiosks in grocery stories are
union-represented, but that’s be-
cause they’re actually employ-
ees of the grocery. None of the
approximately 8,000 company-
owned Starbucks stores has ever
unionized before now.
NLRB finds Amazon broke
the law, orders new election
at warehouse in Alabama
The National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB) ruled Nov. 29
that Amazon’s “flagrant disre-
gard” for labor law was so egre-
gious that a new election must
be held at its distribution center
in Bessemer, Alabama, to deter-
mine whether workers there
want a union.
In mail ballots counted April
9, the workers voted 1,798 to
738 against joining the Retail,
Wholesale and Department
Store Union (RWDSU).
No date has been set yet for a
new election.