Union efforts since 2020
Eleven months after Starbucks employees in Superior petitioned for a union, organizer and barista Len Harris was fired.
Harris had helped organize her store, the first Starbucks in Colorado to file for a union, because she was overwhelmed by the frenetic pace of the early morning shift. “It was like we were soldiers who hit the ground running. Go, go, go! And I was like, ‘This is crazy. I’m being paid $12 to do breakneck pace stuff for what?’” she said. She liked her job and didn’t want to leave, but felt her hard work only rewarded the company and its shareholders — not the employees.
The Superior Starbucks was part of a wave of union activity that emerged after the pandemic, when support of unions grew to a 57-year-high in 2022 as Americans sympathized with frontline and service workers, according to a Gallup poll. But the threat of retaliation — like being fired — lingers long after a workplace votes to unionize, at least until workers ratify a contract, which only a fraction of new unions have been able to do.
A Colorado Sun analysis of the union formation in the state between Jan 1, 2020, and Feb. 29, 2024, found that 143 petitions from Colorado workers were filed with the National Labor Relations Board. So far, only 63, or 44%, were successful in unionizing. Of those, about one quarter, or 16, have confirmed they’ve reached their first contract. Another 14 unions did not respond to requests for an update.
Union efforts
Yet others met with unique challenges — one employer closed the location, another group withdrew after they lost support from professional labor organizers. Other negotiations have hit a wall after employee turnover and hopes of a contract have ended. There are pitfalls at every stage in the process and it’s a challenge to keep the momentum up so time is of the essence, union organizers say.
“Labor organizers across the board know that the No. 1 tactic of multibillion-dollar corporations or large corporations is time. That is the one thing that they have,” said Liza Nielsen, a Starbucks shift supervisor who started working at the Superior store when Harris began having organizing conversations.
Nielsen, who voted to unionize two years ago, said there’s been a lot of staff turnover at her store. She’s one of the few workers present during the union drive, but said there’s a lot of support among newcomers.
“Of course people and organizers across the country have gotten fatigued over these past two and a half years at this point,” she added. “We’ve really done a solid job of keeping up the momentum, so I wouldn’t say it’s the hardest fight to keep it strong. But it’s definitely a long fight.”
Highlights from Colorado’s newest unions
March 5, 2022 — Forty janitors who clean the Coors Brewery and commercial offices in Golden ratify their first contract. They never petitioned the NLRB for representation because their employer, Integrated Cleaning Services, voluntarily recognized the union. The new union also joined an existing contract for commercial cleaners that was previously negotiated by its union organizer SEIU Local 105.
August 23, 2022 — Two days before employees are set to vote on a union at the Trader Joe’s in Boulder, the petition is withdrawn.
Of the 63 successful Colorado elections since 2020, here is the status of their first contract
Days to first contract: 247, 500 and never
There’s no central repository for union contracts. The NLRB keeps track of workplaces that file for representation, but not all do, so even that data is incomplete. Employers who voluntarily recognize workers’ unions, and therefore don’t send the matter to a vote, do not appear in the NLRB database. Nor do “premajority” unions, a growing class of unions in Colorado that lack collective bargaining rights, like the Defenders Union of Colorado and other public sector workers.
Beyond filing for representation, the NLRB tracks when employers at unionized workplaces are behaving badly through Unfair Labor Practice cases — which Starbucks is facing now thanks to the firing of Harris, among other things.
Despite the lack of contract information, a number of studies have tried to pinpoint the time frame between when a union is recognized and when a contract is ratified. A Bloomberg Law analysis of data from 2005 to 2022 put the average time to contract at 465 days, and that’s getting longer. From 2020 to 2022, getting a contract took more than 500 days.
Of the 63 successful Colorado elections since 2020, here is the status of their first contract
The Economic Policy Institute looked at research from the past two decades and found that as the years went by, the rate of unresolved contracts after the first year grew from 44% in a 2008 study to 63% in a 2018 study.
That one-year mark is important: After that, an employer can file to decertify the union if they believe the union has lost majority support. (The employer only needs to present a “reasonable belief” that support was lost). In other words, unions are constantly in a time crunch to move onto the next step due to worker turnover, waning morale and decertification.
Employee turnover ended Brewing Market’s contract negotiations after workers at the Boulder coffee shop unionized in September 2022, said Clifton Horton, president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, Local 26.
“The length of time has more to do with both sides making sure we dot every I and cross every T. Legal for both parties is heavily involved to review and confirm all agreed language works,” Horton said in an email. “Brewing Market would have been complete in six months but the decline in union support during negotiations led to the failure of the campaign.”
On average though, Horton said, Local 26 would start contract talks within 90 days of NLRB certifying the vote, with a contract approved within a year.
At the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, or FMCS, an independent government agency that provides mediation services for employers and unions, there’s a sense that the time between election and contract hasn’t changed dramatically over the years.
Based on the mediations the agency has been involved in, the process takes “probably a little bit over a year to get an initial contract,” said Deputy Director of Field Operations Javier Ramirez.
In the past three years, agency-mediated cases took an average of 247 days to reach an initial contract agreement. Of the initial contracts during the same period, 46% were completed, though some cases are still pending. Those figures are lower than in past years. But FMCS cautions that it’s not involved in all contracts so its data is not comprehensive, plus it relies on its own staff to submit information.
Highlights from Colorado’s newest unions
Oct. 13, 2022 — Seven full- and part-time massage therapists at the Elements Massage at I-25 and Hampden Avenue vote to unionize the location. The business owner shut the location down. “We couldn’t get to a first contract because he closed the building,” said Jim Hammons, UFCW Local 7’s organizing director, who worked with the massage therapists.
Nov. 18, 2022 — Starbucks fires Len Harris, who helped organize the first Starbucks store in Colorado. The Superior store had filed its request for representation Dec. 30, 2021, and voted 12 to 2 to unionize April 22, 2022. Harris appealed and a NLRB judge ordered Starbucks to reinstate her, give her back pay and apologize. The company has appealed.
It’s not unusual to see a number of first-time unions fail to reach the first contract. It’s just a tough road …
— Jeffrey Zax, labor expert
Following the leaders
The biggest winners of the national uptick in union support are workers with well-established unions and new unions that can build off precedent.
According to a Colorado Sun analysis, nearly half of all new contracts ratified since 2020 adopted existing contracts elsewhere in their companies, including three pharmacy workers at the Safeway in Alamosa, who were added to a union contract representing 130 other pharmacy technicians in Colorado.
In Greeley, clerks and trainers at the Swift Beef company joined an existing contract previously negotiated by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 7, which represents 3,000 other workers at the plant, according to organizers.
Workers can also borrow contract language from other unions to speed up the process. When workers at Meow Wolf’s Denver location unionized, they repurposed contract language of the Meow Wolf Santa Fe location, which unionized in 2020. But even with the pre-existing language, the process still took seven months.
And they’re the lucky ones.
“It’s not unusual to see a number of first-time unions fail to reach the first contract,” said Jeffrey Zax, a professor of economics and labor expert at the University of Colorado. “It’s just a tough road, especially at companies with high turnover and a lot of industry competition.”
One employer closed his business after workers voted for a union. At the City Market in Fruita, two workers who voted in favor of a union lost their bid when union reps at UFCW Local 7 gave them up in exchange for larger contracts with King Soopers stores in Loveland and Broomfield.
None of the nearly 400 Starbucks stores that have unionized nationally since December 2021 has reached a contract. Starbucks has fired workers, been ordered to rehire them and is now headed to the U.S. Supreme Court to make its case. In Colorado, Starbucks has been ordered by a federal administrative law judge to rehire three workers, including Harris, who led the effort at the Superior store. Starbucks appealed the NLRB judge’s order in December to reinstate, pay back wages and apologize to Harris. Meanwhile, Amazon, whose workers started to unionize more than two years ago in New York and still don’t have a contract, is arguing that the NLRB is unconstitutional.
Last week, Starbucks announced it had agreed with Workers United, which represents nearly 400 Starbucks stores nationwide plus 13 in Colorado, on a “goal of completing bargaining and contract ratification in 2024.”
A Starbucks spokesperson said in an email to The Sun that there is no change to ongoing court cases though “discussions are expected to provide an opportunity for the two parties to review all litigation.”
It’s not unusual to see a number of first-time unions fail to reach the first contract. It’s just a tough road …
— Jeffrey Zax, labor expert
Highlights from Colorado’s newest unions
July 15, 2023 — Members of the Meow Wolf Workers Collective in Denver ratify their first contract as a union. The contract took seven months to negotiate from the time that they were voluntarily recognized by management. The process was relatively swift, in part due to a drawn-out union battle for Meow Wolf workers in Santa Fe, which lasted more than two years, during which management was accused of union busting.
July 17, 2023 — Pamela Pantos, president and CEO of Central City Opera, leaves the company midseason after a monthslong labor dispute, during which both the union and the opera file cases of unfair labor practices with the NLRB. Among them is a charge that the opera refused to bargain or bargained in bad faith.
Nov. 9, 2023 — Employees of Green Dragon Cannabis Co, a growhouse based in Denver, ratified their first contract. They couldn’t go the usual route with the NLRB but not because of federal cannabis laws. Colorado passed a law in 2021 giving agriculture workers the right to unionize, which isn’t allowed at the federal level.
An ongoing effort
Companies whose workers have been unionized for decades have a better understanding of the partnership between employers and employees. Kaiser Permanente has its roots in labor. Its shipbuilding industrialist founder wanted its unionized workforce to also have health care.
In Colorado, Kaiser employs 4,600 union workers, or about 80% of its workforce. Working with its union has helped the company retain staff, union organizers said. Turnover at Kaiser is less than half the average of other U.S. health care companies, according to a 2022 PwC survey.
“The people of Kaiser Permanente are our greatest strength,” Jessica Bidlingmaier, Kaiser’s vice president of human resources said in an email. “To lead the industry in providing high-quality, affordable health care, we are committed to being a best place to work for those providing that care – our employees and physicians.”
While that didn’t stop about 3,000 Denver-area Kaiser health care workers from joining a national strike in October, the two sides came to an agreement in three days. Service Employees International Union Local 105 president Stephanie Felix-Sowy called it “nothing short of historic.”
Alejo R. González, also at SEIU Local 105, calls it “a good partnership.”
“Having that relationship and being able to work on it and work together is the ideal,” he said. “I think sometimes, there’s misunderstandings of priorities or there’s times when we’re not on the same page. And sometimes you just got to do something to wake them up. I mean, Kaiser is a multibillion-dollar organization and they were able to do the right thing, but it took the workers to remind them.”
Meanwhile, workers at Meow Wolf Denver, one of the new, post-pandemic unions, are realizing the ongoing effort of maintaining a union system — even after securing a contract.
“One major misconception is that getting a contract is the endgame. In actuality, even unions that have been around for (decades) still have to organize regularly.” said Jade Kelly, president of Communication Workers of America, Local 7799.
Part of Meow Wolf’s current struggle is logistical. Rei Wolfson, executive board member of Meow Wolf Workers Collective, said that creating clear channels within the union and maintaining the momentum they had when organizing has turned out to be even more challenging than organizing itself.
Despite their voluntary recognition, and despite their contract wins, the workers still feel friction with management.
“I think another one of the reasons why this is happening is just that people in our HR department and our management have never interfaced with the union before … So they just think their authority is being threatened and they get sensitive,” she said.
“I do sincerely hope that it’s really just kind of like growing pains, but you kind of need to get used to our presence and the fact that we’ll be around.”
Highlights from Colorado’s newest unions
Nov. 20, 2023 — Workers at Opera Colorado vote 91-8 in favor of a union. Theirs is the first in decades to represent both on-stage and backstage workers collectively in what is called a “wall-to-wall” union, according to the American Guild of Musical Artists.
Feb. 27, 2024 — More than two years after its first store moved to unionize, Starbucks announced that it has agreed to begin discussions on a “foundational framework” with the Workers United union, which represents workers at 397 stores nationwide including 13 in Colorado. Their goal is to complete bargaining and get a contract ratification in 2024.
March 6-7, 2024 — Denver Art Museum workers are scheduled to vote on a union. If they win their election, they will join a growing number of major cultural institutions with union representation.
Design by Danika Worthington, The Colorado Sun.