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Starbucks at 4th & Vine is first Cincinnati store to unionize

Sorin Sîrbu
/
Unsplash

Workers at the Cincinnati Starbucks at Fourth and Vine voted 9-1 Thursday afternoon to join a union. It’s the first Starbucks in the area to unionize.

Lou Shamblin works at the store and helped organize the union vote.

“I think the reason that we all pursued this instead of finding a different job is because we all truly care about each other and we care about our work and what happens there,” Shamblin said.

Shamblin says staff were concerned about safety measures, proper training, and general lack of support from management.

A majority of staff petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for a union vote back in April.

“We got it pretty quickly compared to some of the other stores — just in a couple of weeks,” Shamblin said. “We all love Starbucks, and we all love working for the company, but sometimes we just didn't see the support in management that we would have hoped.”

The workers are joining the Chicago and Midwest Joint Board of Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. The unionconfirmed the Cincinnati store vote on Twitter.

“Moving forward from here, we [will] start to get more involved with the movement as a whole,” Shamblin said. “And so that means that we're going to start creating committees and action teams to work within the store … and we're basically going to be trained on our rights as partners that we have now as being in a union.”

More than 160 Starbucks stores across the country have voted to unionize since December, and 27 have voted against it, according to NPR.

Local Government Reporter with a particular focus on Cincinnati; experienced journalist in public radio and television throughout the Midwest. Enthusiastic about: civic engagement, public libraries, and urban planning.