Harvard Square Starbucks Baristas Unanimously Vote to Unionize

Starbucks baristas at the Harvard Square location at 1 JFK St. voted unanimously to unionize on Monday, joining Starbucks Workers United.

All nine of the eligible employees — which includes full-time and regular part-time baristas employed at the location — voted to join the union, according to the National Labor Relations Board. Shift managers, store managers, and supervisors were not included in the referendum.

The Harvard Square Starbucks was closed all Monday to conduct the election, which took place from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Brown paper was pasted along the café’s windows, obstructing the view from the inside — where the election was held. By Tuesday, the coffee shop was back to regular business.

The Harvard Square Starbucks is the sixteenth location in the Boston area to join SBWU, according to a Tuesday press release by the union, with 170 unionized Starbucks stores unionized nationwide.

“To me, winning our vote was a moment for our entire team to come together and more directly improve the job that we all know and love,” Ya Sin Supreme Allah, a barista of six years, said.

Starbucks spokesperson Sam Jeffries wrote in an emailed statement that “we respect our partners right to choose, through a fair and democratic process, to be represented by a union or not to be represented by a union, and will continue to work together to make Starbucks the best job in retail.”

The vote comes in the wake of Starbucks strikes across the country in protest of a baristas’ dress code policy change — which SBWU says should have been negotiated through collective bargaining. Under the new rules, which went into effect last Tuesday, baristas are required to wear solid black buttoned, collared, or crew-neck shirts with khaki, black or blue denim bottoms.

—Staff writer Darcy G Lin can be reached at darcy.lin@thecrimson.com.