Starbucks unions have reached SC. Could national wave shift organized labor in the state?
By February, baristas at a popular Columbia Starbucks had a basic list of requests.
They wanted a non-cash tipping option. They wanted an adequate number of employees to work each shift. And they wanted raises for employees who had earned seniority for years of service as they organized to form a union.
After a months long battle that at one point involved a strike outside Columbia’s Millwood Avenue Starbucks to protest alleged union busting, the store won their union vote Thursday —the third Starbucks in South Carolina to formally join a national union. A store in Greenville formally unionized in mid-May, and an Anderson store unionized Tuesday.
“It’s really great to be one of the first in South Carolina,” said Sophie Ryan, one of the organizers at the Millwood Avenue store. She said she hopes their success will give confidence to other stores in the Palmetto State looking to unionize.
Prior to this year, organized labor at Starbucks was almost unheard of.
Not a single store nationwide was unionized before December. By May, more than 60 had formally joined the national Starbucks Workers United union.
With the wave of national labor organizing having clearly reached South Carolina, advocates say a narrative change could be on the horizon, even in a state where a former sitting governor once told a crowded room she didn’t want new jobs here if they were union jobs.
But is a national organizing wave in the midst of an already rapidly changing workforce enough to overcome generations of anti-union attitudes in the state?
Starbucks employees say the visual can only help.
An embedded culture
The anecdotal evidence aside, Candace Carroll of the libertarian political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity said she hasn’t seen a large enough movement in South Carolina so far to be worried that the state’s hardened attitude toward unions will change.
South Carolina has been reliably anti-union almost as long as workers have been legally able to join them. The state consistently boasts the lowest proportion of unionized workers in the U.S.
In 2021, just 1.7% of the state’s workforce were union members, and that number hasn’t surpassed 3% since 2013.
“A lot of people don’t want to join a union for a variety of reasons,” Carroll said.
In her organization’s opinion, unions limit employees from taking independent action on workplace issues. And even in a right-to-work state like South Carolina, people who don’t want to join an existing union at their workplace still feel pressure to do so.
Because of those attitudes, South Carolina’s anti-union philosophies are actually attractive to those who say a labor union is not in their best interest, she said.
South Carolina has been proudly “right-to-work” since 1954. That means employees have a choice whether to join a union at their workplace. Twenty-seven states have such laws, and the policy is a tenet of the Republican Party platform. (Though historically a majority of Democrats and Independents have supported such policies as well, according to Gallup polling.)
“People choose to move out of states that are heavily unionized to come to a place like South Carolina,” Carroll said.
There’s evidence to bear that out. A famous recent example of this was Boeing’s announcement it was moving production of the 787 Dreamliner entirely out of Washington state and consolidating that work at an existing plant in North Charleston.
Unionized employees in Washington said the move was likely about cutting union jobs. Boeing has pushed back on those claims.
“It’s a very anti-union company. … They’ve spent millions just battling our unions on organizing efforts,” a union representative told Forbes at the time.
While the company may find fewer union jobs in South Carolina, some of their Palmetto State employees have made it clear they do want to be part of a union.
Employees attempted to organize in 2017, but those efforts failed.
In 2018, flight-line workers in North Charleston voted to form a union, with more than 60% of a 200-member workforce voting in favor. But Boeing fought that vote and won, and the unionization efforts remain up in the air.
Shifting winds
“Organized labor is shifting in South Carolina, absolutely,” said Charles Brave, president of the state chapter of the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest group of labor unions.
The Starbucks trend hints at a coming change in the service industry nationwide, Brave said. Frontline hospitality workers who make well below the average national wage are tired after a tumultuous pandemic, and they’re demanding better conditions.
That momentum paired with ongoing grassroots organizing in South Carolina is promising. Things might appear to be moving slowly, Brave said, but they are moving.
Several years ago, Brave organized a group of faith leaders across the state into a faith-labor roundtable to discuss how to better communities through improving working conditions.
Many of the community leaders involved in that effort are now working with the national United Steel Workers and others on an organizing campaign at the Giti Tire plant in Richburg. Those efforts have been ongoing for more than two years.
Brave is also paying close attention to contentious efforts to unionize Amazon warehouse workers in Alabama.
“That’s South Carolina’s next big giant,” he said.
But while the big campaigns are good for visibility, to be effective in South Carolina advocates say organizers have to start on the ground floor.
“You can’t organize in the South like you do in the north or the west,” Brave said. “You have to organize the community first, and educate about what a union brings to the table.”
One of the most successful ways to get people to sign onto a union is to show them how organized labor could increase their wages, Brave said. Union wages tend to be slightly higher than at non-union jobs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
The prospect for better health care benefits is also a frequent selling point for otherwise ambivalent workers, Brave added.
But before he can even begin making the union pitch, he has to sell the community. The AFL-CIO every year hosts a free Labor Day picnic for community members that is open to the public. It’s an AFL-CIO tradition, but Brave said it’s also a good way to plant the seed about their mission.
“We can’t match Boeing dollar for dollar. We can’t match Giti Tire dollar for dollar,” Brave said. “But I can tell you this much. If we go back to grassroots organizing, we could beat them on the ground. And that’s the game that we’re playing.”
Being realistic
Carroll, with Americans for Prosperity, pushed back on the idea that being anti-union means being anti-worker.
“We are very much in favor of employees advocating for themselves,” she said. “But I think the incentive has to be lined up appropriately with what incentivizes each individual.”
And the vast majority of workers in South Carolina seem to agree, she added.
Jacklyn Sobotowicz has encountered those attitudes while organizing union drives with the Columbia chapter of Democratic Socialists of America. Sobotowicz had a hand in the Millwood Starbucks unionization efforts, but has also been working with a handful of food service and retail businesses on smaller scale collective action.
In her experience working with different groups of employees on unionization efforts, people aren’t ideologically opposed so much as they’re ambivalent or unsure how the process will impact them directly.
“Unions are an amorphous idea in people’s minds, it means very different things to different people,” she said.
Talking about a policy initiative from the AFL-CIO isn’t going to engage most people, for example. But talking about simple, employee-led initiatives, like sending a letter to management about a broken door or the sick leave policy, is more tangible, she said.
Whether the grassroots efforts can surmount decades of anti-union rhetoric remains to be seen. Carroll is doubtful, but said it’s worth paying attention to.
“I think there’s an opportunity for South Carolina to take a look at this and try to get out ahead of it,” she said. “It’s something to keep an eye on.”
This story was originally published June 3, 2022 at 10:17 AM.
