ANN ARBOR, Mich. (WXYZ) — From Amazon to Google and Starbucks, workers at more and more major companies are seeking union representation, some more successfully than others.
After workers at Buffalo Starbucks locations voted to unionize back in December of 2021, a wave of union interest spread here in Michigan and around the country.
In a matter of months, 10 Starbucks in Michigan held successful union votes, including five in Ann Arbor.
“I don’t want better pay for just myself, I want better pay for the guy who’s been here for 14 years and makes 10 cents more than me," said former Starbucks shift supervisor, Hannah Whitbeck.
Whitbeck successfully led the union charge at her Ann Arbor Starbucks location. In early June she and her co-workers gathered enough votes for representation with Starbucks Workers United.
One Ann Arbor Starbucks voted against forming a union.
“Five out of six, in a really small area, I would say is a really good deal," Whitbeck said.
According to the National Labor Relations Board, union petitions were 57% in the first half of this fiscal year from Oct. 1 to March 31.
Professor Marick Masters teaches business at Wayne State University and has written extensively on labor issues. He told 7 Action News that despite this measurable uptick, union membership in our state is still nowhere near where it used to be.
“In 1960, 50% of the workers in Michigan were unionized," he said.
Fast forward to now, and it's around 15%, when you combine the private sector and the public sector, where union membership is generally higher.
“So this is perhaps a tipping point, but it’s too early to tell whether or not this represents a sea-change in union success, either in Detroit, statewide, or nationally," Masters said.
A noticeable trend is more hospitality workers like baristas seeking unionization; positions not historically widely unionized.
Workers at a Midtown coffee shop, Great Lakes Coffee Roasting Company, went on strike back in February calling for higher pay, better benefits and paid sick leave.
They too are pushing for a union, with several open cases before the NLRB. The store closed in January due to a COVID outbreak.
7 Action News spoke with the attorney for the coffee suppliers, who said the location was no longer making money.
Attorney Frank Mamat, who represents Coffee Creations, said he is confident his clients did nothing wrong and expects the NLRB will dismiss the complaints.
We also reached out to the attorney for the store's owners. We are still waiting to hear back.
"The point that I take away from it is that corporations have a lot of power," Masters said. "And they can close their businesses for economic reasons. They can’t close a business just to resist unionization. But that’s often very difficult to prove that they closed the business because of union organizing activities.”
Masters believes the COVID-19 pandemic was a huge catalyst for this recent wave of union interest.
“There’s no doubt that the workers across the nation at Starbucks saw this an opportunity and wanted to take advantage of it as quickly as possible. And I think that’s one of the reasons why they’ve had success," he said.
As for Hannah, she feels the seeds of unionization were there long before COVID, as she and her co-workers wanted to feel like they had a seat at the decision-making table.
But the pandemic she said, made certain concerns glaringly clear. COVID was a more of a breaking point, she said.
In April, Hannah was terminated from her position as a shift supervisor. In a letter, Starbucks cited an incident in which Hannah left a barista unattended at the store.
Hannah said she'd never had any formal warning prior to that and was a model employee; arriving late just once, and that was because she got into a car accident. She feels her termination was retaliatory for her leadership in seeking union representation.
"I knew it was a possibility," she told Action News.
Hannah is now working with the NLRB to try and get reinstated to her position.
7 Action News reached out to Starbucks for comment on Hannah's termination. We have not yet heard back.
