As of March 25, employees at eight Starbucks (SBUX 1.00%) locations in the U.S. have voted to unionize, and elections have been requested at dozens of other locations around the country. In this episode of "Ask Us Anything" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on March 18, Fool.com contributor Jason Hall discusses the growing labor movement at the coffee chain.
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Jason Hall: We've seen a half dozen stores, maybe more, that have voted to unionize, I think there's more than 100 that are going to be voting on it. There's certainly a big groundswell of momentum. I think to a certain extent, there may have been some inevitability here. Because Starbucks doesn't just have Starbucks stores. Starbucks has licensees, Globally, it's about a 50-50 mix. In the U.S. it's less than half of stores that are licensees, so they're franchise operated. It has less control over all of the labor situations in all of its Starbucks-branded stores. I think there's also just a little bit of a reaction to the moment. Everything that's going on, the "Great Resignation," employees demanding more. For decades, we've seen the middle class steadily lose bargaining power, lose income as a share of GDP. Even though Starbucks has been a very forward-looking company and leaning forward for things like free college education for employees, better benefits by far than most retail organizations do, restaurant kind of food service businesses do, it's still a challenging environment to be in. I think to a certain extent there was some inevitability. The question is, will this go from what it is now to a massive movement to where we see it go from hundreds to thousands and thousands of stores? It's tough to say. At the end of the day, I think really what matters is the company needs to have good labor relations, continue to be a leader in this space, because those are things that make it attractive to employees. That's what allows it to continue to iterate its model and deliver great service and the same experience in any Starbucks you go to. That's really what matters to me at the end of the day.
