Workers At Second Astoria Starbucks Seek To Unionize

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Employees at another Starbucks cafe in Astoria have filed a petition to form a union, organizers announced on Friday, making it the second neighborhood shop to be swept up in the nationwide trend.

Workers at the 31st Street/Ditmars Boulevard Starbucks filed union petitions with the National Labor Relations Board on Friday, according to Workers United — an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, which employees will join if their effort is successful.

It comes nearly a month after workers at the Astoria Boulevard Starbucks filed to form a union — the chain's first Queens location to do so. At least 225 Starbucks locations nationwide have seen their workers filed for unions since the movement began in Buffalo, N.Y. last year, according to a tracker by Perfect Union.

"We have been underpaid, short-staffed, and subject to inhumane conditions for long enough," said Austin Locke, a 5-year Starbucks employee who works at the Ditmars location. "The working class keeps the world running and united there’s nothing we cannot do."

A majority of the store's 23 employees have signed cards requesting a union election, according to a Workers United spokesperson. Mail ballots will be sent in early May for the newly filed shops, as well as the Astoria Boulevard cafe.

Also on Friday, employees at three other New York City-area Starbucks shops filed union petitions: the Williamsburg Reserve cafe in Brooklyn, and stores in Nanuet, Rockland County and Westbury, Long Island.

Notable victories in the campaign so far have included the Reserve Roastery in the Meatpacking District, whose employees voted 46-36 to unionize earlier this month.

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