The Erb Memorial Union Starbucks have joined the national wave of unionization, bringing the total number of unionized Eugene Starbucks locations to six. EMU Starbucks employees sent signed union cards to the National Labor Relations Board on Jan. 4.

Private sector employees, like Starbucks “partners,” sign union cards to indicate interest in being represented by a union. A workplace must collect cards from at least 30% of employees and send them to the NLRB. Once the cards are processed, which can take six to eight weeks, employees hold a vote to determine if they will be represented by a union. That vote is decided by a simple majority.

Union supporters hope to bargain for better working conditions and higher wages.

“The working conditions are pretty horrific,” Kenny Park, a partner since May, said.

At the crux of these poor conditions is the volume of orders. Park said the store pulls in more orders than anywhere else in the district. To compensate, 12-15 partners are on the clock during peak times and 10 are behind the counter in a very narrow space, Park said.

This makes it impossible to maintain a COVID-safe distance between employees but also poses threats to physical safety.

Owen Wach, a supervisor at the EMU location, said some partners have gotten concussions from hitting their heads on oven doors.

“There’s a lot of unsafe elements of the store where even the fire marshal said, ‘This isn’t acceptable, but there’s nothing better you can do,’” Wach said.

For instance, the breaker box is covered by a trash can, which is a fire hazard, but there is physically no other place to put the trash can, so it stays in this unsafe spot, Wach said.

Employees hope to improve conditions through a store remodel. Wach said managers have discussed a potential remodel to add space and address safety concerns for years, but nothing has come of it.

“I’m hoping that the unionization will fast track that, so we can have a safe space to work in,” Trinity Smith, a partner since June, said. “If we just had a few more feet of space in our building, we would have more space just to breathe and calm down because it’s already so stressful.”

The nature of a Starbucks location in the EMU means the majority of customers are University of Oregon students. This can contribute to more friendly customer interactions, but can also mean tips are “humiliating,” Park said.

Wach worked at the Oakway Starbucks location before coming to the EMU. They said at Oakway they could expect to make about $2 per hour in tips. At the EMU location, he can expect seven to 14 cents.

“We don’t make any tips just because it’s students,” Smith said. “While that’s completely understandable — it’s up to the customer completely — we all feel like our pay should reflect the work that we’re putting into the company.”

All Starbucks employees received $15/hour at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased wages for many, but those wage increases have been reversed.

Now that they’ve filed, employees have faced some intimidation tactics from bosses. Higher-ups from Starbucks locations outside of the district have shown up to say “we’re here for you” and discourage voting for a union, Wach said. Partners have also been called into two-on-one conversations between a partner, a district manager and another manager.

“These meetings aren’t mandatory, but they’re framed as being mandatory,” Wach said. “It’s really hard to say, ‘Oh, my boss and her boss. I don’t really want to talk to you two.’”

In these meetings, partners are told forming a union could take away employee benefits.

“The partners leading the union are very knowledgeable and won’t fall for the fear mongering Starbucks is currently trying to throw our way,” Park said.

Wach is one of the partners highly invested in the union-forming process. They said they feel invested in their working conditions and hope others will, too.

“There’s a lot more investment and a sense of being part of something larger,” he said. “I feel like it really is becoming a movement not just with us, but also hopefully with other public sector jobs. So much customer service stuff is so hard and so unfair to the people that work it. It’s just very exciting being a big part of that and, optimistically, I really hope that this spreads.”