Skip to main content
Arizona: Starbucks tries to crack down on union drive
Terrified that their so-called 'partners' are uniting across the US, the infamous corporate coffee chain is flooding the small Mesa store with snooping managers to intimidate workers ahead of a vote to unionise with the SEIU, reports MARK GRUENBERG
A Starbucks brance in Illinois, US

A sudden swarm of snooping supervisors; an anti-union meeting where the union-buster speaker lies about its purpose—and a worker calls the speaker out on it; writing up another worker for going to visit his sick mother in the hospital.

Welcome to some of the abuses Starbucks has visited upon its 30 workers at its store at 6807 East Baseline Road in Mesa, Arizona, because, as one said, they dare to vote to unionise.

The Mesa workers will receive voting materials from today and must return their ballots to the National Labour Relations Board’s (NLRB) Phoenix regional office by January 28. Mesa is one of three unionising drives in the accelerating national campaign by Starbucks Workers United, an affiliate of Service Employees International Union, to organise low-paid workers at the coffee chain.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, January 15, 2026
United States / 18 August 2026
18 August 2026

Trade unions and community groups are mobilising to push back against Trump’s racist raids after new revelations of spying on legal protesters. MARK GRUENBERG reports from the US state of Minnesota

Daniel Gross book
Workers' Rights / 27 July 2026
27 July 2026

US-based labour and social movements authors and organisers Robert Ovetz and James Tracy interview DANIEL GROSS about his new book, Unions of Our Own: Eight Building Blocks to Change Work and the World

THE GREAT ILLUSIONIST: Scotland First Minister John Swinney (centre) with assorted worthies at Wheatley Housing Development in Wallyford, East Lothian, apparently keen on accelerating housebuilding throughout Scotland, January 2026
Holyrood / 6 May 2026
6 May 2026

As Scotland heads to the polls, the main parties offer variations on the same script, says MATT KERR

Starbucks Workers United
Workers' Rights / 1 October 2025
1 October 2025

Organised workers at the notoriously anti-union global giant are scoring victory after victory, and now international bodies are pitching in to finally force this figurehead of corporate capitalism to give in to unionisation, writes EMILIO AVELAR