Workers at a Starbucks in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood voted to unionize this week, becoming the coffee chain's first location in the city to make the move.
Employees felt the need to come together due to pandemic, which brought change to what was once one of the busiest coffee spots in the neighborhood.
"For our store specifically, we actually had a store closure for about four months," said James Kreiss, a store supervisor at the Castro Starbucks. "And for that time we did not feel supported by our leadership at all."
When employees returned to work after the closure, Kreiss claims the lack of support from the company continued. The Castro employees then began looking to a growing group of other unionized Starbucks employees across the country.
Figures from the National Labor Relations Board show employees from about 210 of the company's 9,000 coffee shops have now voted to unionize - one at a time.
The Castro Starbucks employees felt it was important they are the first in San Francisco to do so.
So far, the workers who voted to unionize said they have been getting plenty of support from the neighborhood.
Customers also seem supportive.
"Unionization is really good for our economy," said Mei Ling Hui, who ventured over to the Castro Starbucks from Bernal Heights to get coffee on Wednesday. "It's good for people that live and work in the city. I'm just thrilled they were able to pull this off."
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Employees at the unionized Starbucks store in Santa Cruz recently held a three-day strike supporting other stores' efforts to organize.
NBC Bay Area is waiting to hear back after reaching out to Starbucks by phone and email for a response to the union vote at the Castro neighborhood store.
