- A Starbucks in Buffalo, New York became the first location to unionize last week.
- The store's support district manager said she was "saddened" so many workers voted for the union.
- But the vote has attracted new customers and widespread community support, one barista told Insider.
A Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York, became the first location in the US to unionize last week — and it's been great for business, according to one barista.
Jaz Brisack, a 24-year-old barista at the Elmwood store, said the recent unionization has attracted new customers who may have previously avoided Starbucks in favor of local coffee shops.
"I think customers want the kind of connection and stability and knowing that the people who are making their coffee are taken care of," Brisack told Insider. Her Twitter thread documenting employees' experiences "working at the first unionized Starbucks" went viral on Monday with over 60,000 likes.
"Customers are excited. Many of them are new to Starbucks and tell me they are only here because we are now union. One of these leaves a $20 tip," Brisack wrote, adding that one customer also distributed union pins.
And it goes beyond local support — people from different parts of the country are purchasing small items online in order to tip workers through the app, she said.
Some online orders included congratulatory notes written in place of a customer's name. "Don't make, congrats on union," one receipt reads.
—jaz brisack (@jazbrisack) December 12, 2021
"I think it's clearly in Starbucks' interest to have a union based on how many new customers and how much excitement there is for this," Brisack told Insider. "As a simple business proposition, I think it's more profitable to have a union shop in Buffalo than union-busting."
The employees at the Elmwood Ave location voted 19 to eight in favor of forming a union, according to the official count by National Labor Relations Board. A second Buffalo location voted no, and the third is undergoing further review. Starbucks has maintained throughout the Buffalo union campaign that the union is not necessary.
Despite worker reports of customer enthusiasm, the Elmwood location's support district manager said she was "saddened" by the decision in a letter to the newly unionized workers.
"While Starbucks respects the free choice of our partners, we firmly believe that our work environment, coupled with our outstanding compensation and benefits, makes unions unnecessary at Starbucks," a spokesperson previously told Insider. "We respect our partners' right to organize but believe that they would not find it necessary given our pro-partner environment."