Unionization votes for 3 area Starbucks to be counted Wednesday

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The unionization votes pertaining to three local Starbucks stores will be counted on Wednesday.

Starbucks Workers United, the organizing group for employees seeking to unionize, says the vote will take place at 3 p.m. These are the stores in question:

Amherst (Sheridan and Bailey)Cheektowaga (Walden and Anderson)Depew (Transit and French)

Unionization votes delayed at 3 area Starbucks stores

This comes after the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) denied Starbucks’ request for review of the board’s order to hold the elections.

Of the 20 stores in the Buffalo market, two have already successfully unionized, becoming the first of Starbucks’ nearly 9,000 in the United States to do so. The first was on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo. Cheektowaga’s Genesee Street store followed.

The third store to unionize isn’t anywhere near the other two. Located in Mesa, Arizona employees there voted to unionize on February 25.

Just days after the start of the new year, workers at the nation’s first unionized Starbucks walked off the job. Starbucks Workers United says it was due to “unsafe working conditions.”

The store became unionized the month prior.

To unionize, a store needs a majority vote, which means just over 50 percent.