Pleasanton Starbucks workers vote to unionize

Baristas at a Pleasanton Starbucks are the latest to gain union representation, as workers at the coffee chain throughout the state and country ramp up efforts to contend with what they say are unfair working conditions and practices.

Workers at the Starbucks store at Main Street and Rose Avenue in downtown Pleasanton approved unionization in an 8-4 vote that was finalized in the late afternoon on April 12, making the store the 19th in California to gain union representation for its staff.

“We’re so excited that with our union, we now have a seat at the table in our workplace decisions. Whether you work at a Starbucks cafe or another retail store, we encourage you to join us in trying to create more workplaces by and for the workers,” Elise Lester, a partner and organizer at the downtown store, said in a statement.

In particular, Pleasanton workers said in the statement that they were eager to join the growing efforts across the country by Starbucks workers seeking to contend with alleged cuts to hours, limited staffing, safety concerns and “refusal to bargain with the union in good faith.”

In addition to joining the 18 other California locations represented by Starbucks Workers United, the downtown location will be among the approximately 300 stores with more than 7,500 workers represented by the recently launched union.

However, a Starbucks spokesperson said that unionization was not as popular a prospect for their workers nationwide as the growing number of unionized shops and outspoken leaders would suggest.

“As a result of the direct employment relationship preferred by more than 97% of our partners, we continue to work to reinvent and improve the Starbucks experience,” a Starbucks spokesperson said.

Nonetheless, they said that they respected the rights being exercised by union organizers. “We’re aware that a subset of partners feel differently, and we respect their right to organize and to engage in lawful union activities,” a Starbucks spokesperson said.

They also said they were seeking a relationship of mutual respect between union organizers and the internationally well-known coffee chain.

“We hope that all parties will respect our right to share factual information and our perspective with partners — just as we respect the union’s right to do so — so that partners are able to make an informed, balanced decision regarding union representation,” the spokesperson said.

They said the company would be closely following the National Labor Rights Board’s guidance on working with unionized employees at the newly unionized Pleasanton store as well as others, and that they had complied with the board’s guidelines for union recognition and bargaining.

Organizers at the downtown store, however, disagreed with much of the company’s characterization of growing unionization efforts at its stores across the country, none of which have yet seen Starbucks come to the table to bargain with union organizers, they said.

With roughly 97% of Starbucks locations continuing to be non-unionized, Lester said that the statistic cited by the company’s spokesperson was a “severe underestimate” of workers’ support for unionization, given what she, colleague Tasha Fields and other union organizers at Starbucks locations said are widespread anti-union practices.

“The reason more stores are not unionized is because Starbucks has developed a very clear method of union busting,” Lester said.

She added that the number also failed to account for workers at locations that hadn’t been successful in winning union representation.

Despite the vast majority of Starbucks locations not being unionized, Lester said that the increasing number of locations that are – which had grown to 300 as of last week – were not insignificant.

“7,500 workers is not a subset,” Lester said. “300 stores is not a subset, and 300 communities like Pleasanton are not a subset of Starbucks, and even at our store alone, eight out of 12 partners is not a subset.”

Fields contended that it was corporate leaders at Starbucks, not union organizers, who were mischaracterizing growing union efforts, and that the company’s statement was “not consistent with our experience whatsoever.”

Lester and Fields said that at their location, they and other union supporters had faced hostility from management that was aimed at shutting down union efforts, and which they said was consistent with the experiences they’d heard from other organizers at unionized locations.

“Basically our store manager was pretty upset, and any of our no votes she kind of latched onto, and from there there was really a lot of emotional manipulation and targeting as well to people who she knew or believed to be voting yes,” Fields said.

Fields and Lester said that the shift in attitude was a dramatic one that came on quickly as union organizing ramped up at their store and spurred discussions amongst workers.

“We’ve heard from other union organizers that store managers are made to feel like failures if their stores unionize,” Lester said. “I do think that a lot of that pressure our store manager. I do think a lot of managers are thrown under the bus by corporate.”

Fields and Lester said that much of the stress and uncertainty that they had faced during organization efforts was now off their chests, given the protections they now enjoy via union representation. They also credited their customers and the Pleasanton community at large for supporting their efforts during the early, uncertain stages.

“I grew up in Pleasanton, and I think what really demonstrates solidarity to me was seeing our regular customers … asking us questions about how it was going, and just saying they support us and are proud of us, I think even more so in such a small community was what demonstrated solidarity more than anything,” Lester said.

PG&E purchases Stoneridge Mall Road property from WorkdayFebruary 1, 2026 4:07 pm

IKEA plans to open new-concept store in PleasantonJanuary 29, 2026 8:51 pm

DUSD establishes new limits on AP and honors enrollment at high schoolsJanuary 28, 2026 7:36 am