FILE: Beverage cups featuring the logo of Starbucks Coffee. Photo credit: Stephen Chernin /Getty Images
SALT LAKE CITY — On Monday, employees at the Starbucks on 400 East and 400 South in Salt Lake City became the second Starbucks in Utah to announce their intent to organize a union. They told the company’s CEO that they would like to join the national movement of Starbucks stores attempting to unionize.
In the letter to Howard Schultz, the employees said they felt exploited while on the frontlines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
They said they’d also like to be able to negotiate for better wages, more stable hours, and better healthcare.
Kit Grob is one of the members of the union organizing committee at the downtown store. She says this has been something the employees have been discussing for some time.
“I was raised very pro-union. I believe it’s your moral duty to look into starting a union at your job if you don’t have one,” Grob told KSL NewsRadio.
“It’s just better for workers everywhere.”
Grob said that a majority of employees at the store support starting a union.
“It was easy to feel ourselves stretched thin,” Grob said of employees who worked during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Doing more tasks in less time. And we didn’t really reap any of the rewards of that time.”
In a statement to KSL, Starbucks said they are listening to the stores that are trying to unionize. But in the statement, Starbucks also said the company believes it is better when they’re all partners and when there isn’t a union separating them.
The announcement from the store in downtown Salt Lake City comes nearly one month after employees at another Utah Starbucks, store 50326 in Cottonwood Heights, announced they would attempt to unionize.
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