Starbucks workers in Oceanside vote to unionize

Starbucks workers in Oceanside voted to join a union, part of a growing nationwide labor movement at the coffee chain. 

Workers at the Starbucks on Long Beach Road on Thursday voted 15-5 to join Starbucks Workers United, according to a union news release, making the Oceanside store the 10th Nassau County location to unionize, and joining two others in Suffolk County. The vote comes as the union continues to negotiate for a contract with the Seattle-based international coffee chain that would impact more than 12,000 workers at more than 600 locations across the country. 

The union is trying to broker an agreement that would "win workplace protections on core issues like living wages, respect, racial and gender equity, and fair scheduling and staffing," according to a news release. 

Starbucks Workers United baristas are members of Workers United, which is affiliated with SEIU, also known as Service Employees International Union. 

Oceanside barista Eli McClean said among the reasons he voted to join the union was because he hoped it would help advocate for more practical policies for workers, like not requiring baristas to write notes on every cup, which slows down the process at a store already understaffed. 

"We're not doing this because we hate the company," said McClean, 24, of Baldwin. "It's more that they're not always focused on things that are practical to the people who are working the floors, making the drinks and serving the customers. Being in the union helps make them hear us when we raise those concerns."

In an email, Starbucks spokesperson Phil Gee said the company respects "our partners right to choose, through a fair and democratic process to be represented by a union" and "will continue to work to make Starbucks the best job in retail."

The company pays "above industry average" with benefits, worth an average of $30 an hour for employees working at least 20 hours per week, he said. 

Starbucks and Workers United have met for more than nine bargaining sessions over 20 days, and three mediation sessions over five days with a federal mediator, since April 24, Gee said. The company, as a result reached more than 30 "meaningful agreements on hundreds of topics Workers United delegates told us were important to them."

"We are ready to finalize a reasonable contract for represented partners, but we need the union to return to the bargaining table to finish the job," he said. 

In a January post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Starbucks Workers United said corporate representatives "backtracked on our path forward, failing to support the workers who are key to the company's turnaround" by not bargaining higher wages and better benefits.

In a more recent post on July 23, the union highlighted the "worst CEO-to-worker pay ratio out of all S&P 500 companies in 2024," citing data posted by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, a union federation more commonly known as AFL-CIO.

According to AFL-CIO, the median worker pay at Starbucks was $14,674, a 6,666:1 ratio to Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol.

Global Starbucks sales declined 2% in the third quarter of 2025, according to a fiscal report posted by the company. U.S. store sales also declined 2%, the report says, even as the company opened more than 300 locations in the fiscal period for a total 41,097 stores worldwide. The United States is home to more than 17,000 of those stores.

Net revenue, despite the global sales decline, increased 2% in North America in the third quarter compared to the same period last year. 

CEO Niccol said in the earnings report that the company is "ahead of schedule" to "build a strong operating foundation," and expects to "unleash a wave of innovation in 2026."

Other unionized Starbucks locations on Long Island include stores in Farmingville, Port Jefferson, Massapequa, Wantagh, Levittown, Bellmore, Lynbrook, West Hempstead, two locations in Garden City and Westbury. 

By Brianne Ledda

brianne.ledda@newsday.com@brianne_ledda

Brianne Ledda covers personal finance and affordability for Newsday. She previously covered Southold and Greenport for The Suffolk Times and is a graduate of Stony Brook University.