Seattle Workers Strike at Starbucks’s Flagship Roastery on Capitol Hill | Eater Seattle

"On Pike Street I found a 15,000-square-foot Starbucks Reserve Roastery — the company's first store to be branded a Roastery and one of its most famous — which Starbucks’ website calls “an immersive and dramatic expression of our passion for coffee,” even likening it to “if Willy Wonka had built the ultimate coffee shop instead of a chocolate factory.” Customers can book tours and tasting experiences, and there’s an extensive food and drink menu that includes beer, wine, and liquor. Despite that theatrical presentation, unionized workers at the Roastery organized a strike on the eve of Pride Weekend (part of a wider action at about 150 Starbucks locations) to protest management’s refusal so far to bargain or recognize the union and amid accusations—denied by Starbucks—that employees were ordered to take down Pride decorations. The Roastery was the first store in the country to walk out: staff staged a quiet walkout on June 22 at 9 p.m., an hour before closing, achieved 100% participation so managers had to close the store, and later marched outside with pro-union signs while a closed-door notice informed arriving customers. This was the second walkout this year, with the earlier April action driven largely by chronically understaffed bartenders who want credit-card tipping and better staffing; Starbucks says tipping technology rolled out May 4, 2022, could not be installed at the Roastery because employees filed an NLRB petition, and the company has challenged the Roastery’s mail-in election while an in-person tally showed 38 votes for unionizing and 27 against out of 104 potential voters." - Harry Cheadle