Danbury Starbucks third in state to vote to unionize

DANBURY — Staff at the Starbucks shop in Danbury’s Berkshire Shopping Center on Newtown Road have voted 18-1 to form a union.

This Danbury Starbucks is the third in the state to form a union and was the fourth to file for unionization.

“I’m really proud of it, personally,” said Marlon Perchuk, a barista who voted in favor of unionizing. “It’s something I’ve been involved with ever since we started discussing this as a possibility.”

Starbucks Corporation is a Seattle-based coffee shop with thousands of locations nationwide.

“We respect the right of all partners to make their own decisions about union representation, and we are committed to engaging in good faith collective bargaining for each store where a union has been appropriately certified,” a Starbucks spokesperson said in a statement.

Next, the National Labor Relations Board must certify the election, and then Starbucks Workers United must select a bargaining representative and send the company an initial bargaining demand, according to the spokesperson. “Following receipt of a demand to bargain, Starbucks will communicate through the representative identified by Workers United to propose a date and location for a first in-person contract bargaining session,” the company stated.

These Danbury-based Starbucks employees submitted a letter to Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan on May 19 to explain they had collectively decided unionization was “the only reasonable path forward.” Starbucks has three other Danbury stores, Mill Plain Road, Federal Road and North Street:

The first Starbucks store in the nation to unionize was a Buffalo, N.Y. location in December 2021. More than 300 Starbucks stores across the nation have since unionized, including in Vernon and West Hartford. In Branford, a vote to form a union at the Starbucks on

North Main Street failed by three votes, prompting workers to file a petition alleging the corporation of coercive actions.

Perchuk said he has been watching the unionizations closely since the Buffalo-based Starbucks unionized.

“After a certain point, we felt very strongly that Starbucks management does not know what they are doing,” he said. “They don’t know what it means to people to work here, they don’t know what it means to have a job they enjoy working and not being able to feed yourself or your family. I think we all felt very strongly that [unionizing] was the absolutely the best course of action to take. It’s very exciting to be part of a national effort.”

The Starbucks spokesperson said Workers United hasn’t tried to bargain for the Vernon or West Hartford stores since November 2022.

“Unfortunately, Workers United refused to bargain without unilateral preconditions and has refused to engage with the company to schedule additional contract bargaining sessions for either store,” the spokesperson said.

The company said in the statement that it’s “committed to progress negotiations towards a first contract where union representatives have approached contract bargaining with professionalism and

have allowed both parties to discuss proposals.”

Fighting for better wages, more staff

Perchuk, who has been working at Starbucks for five years, said he loves the sense of community he gets from working at Starbucks as well as the opportunity to integrate himself into the community and foster “that sense of community, which is what Starbucks claims to be about.”

“As we found we were being impeded by the company, more and more it sort of became push come to shove and it’s a pretty unanimous feeling that we can express ourselves better than the company can or is willing to at this point,” Perchuk said.

Tyler Kilgore, who works as shift supervisor at the Danbury-based Starbucks and voted to unionize, said he hopes the vote will lead to better wages and more staffing.

“I feel like it’s definitely helped us all come together and appreciate what we do for one another,” Kilgore said, “and I also feel like it would help people in my position get things they need to get done in a timely fashion.”

The Newtown Road Starbucks announced the unionization of its store on Twitter as well as the unionization of the Starbucks store in Taylor, Mich.

Hearst Connecticut Media file photo This Starbucks is a standalone building at Berkshire Shopping Plaza at 67 Newtown Road in Danbury. It’s employees voted 18-1 to unionize, a decision they hope will lead to better wages and more staff.