Denton, TX, – On June 30 in Denton, Texas, the Rayzor Ranch Starbucks held a One Year Union Sip-In to celebrate the anniversary of the location’s successful union vote. People entering the store were greeted by a colorful table of activity sheets, community supporters writing messages to the union on a poster board for the break room, and a rainbow birthday cake.

“It's been a really incredible year and it feels great knowing that the support is still very much alive and active and that we're here, we're still going strong, and we're here to stay,” said Moo Amassyali, a lead organizer for the location.

For organizer Shreya Chaudhari, their biggest takeaway from this year of being unionized was the lesson of persistence, saying, “They will wear you down with time and time and time. You have to persevere through all the BS corporations will put you though. It’s quite literally having the persistence to go against it and say we don’t care. We don’t care that we have digital tips or not. We are still unionized, and you can’t fight that.”

Amassyali echoed this sentiment, saying that the past year has shown them that union organizing is, “a bit of a process, and it’s time consuming, but it’s definitely worth the time and effort that we need to put into this.”

Amassyali sees the impact of this persistence and effort extending beyond this one Starbucks location, noting, “I’ve had somebody from AutoZone reach out to me. Recently somebody from Target reached out to me. So there's workers from other corporations that are interested in this whole union thing, and they're like, how do we get started on this?”

Chaudhari agreed, saying, “There are people around us, even from Target, even from AutoZone, that are more than willing to support us in so many different ways and showing Starbucks that we are willing to strike. We are willing to do sip-ins. We are willing to do boycotts. We are willing to do so many different kinds of things to show up and say that we don't agree with how you're treating us and you need to listen to us.”

Organizers said management has been dishonest and inconsistent in the wake of the store’s unionization. Chaudhari recalled instances of the dress code being applied inconsistently, with union members being held to one standard and non-union employees being held to another.

Organizer Vince Martinez said that after the Rayzor Ranch location received a company-wide raise, management would tell other stores that the Rayzor Ranch location didn’t get the raise because they were unionized. “We were being used as this example of like, this store is bad because they unionized. That’s the dishonesty coming from straight from the managers,” said Martinez. “It’s like a completely different level of dishonesty. And not only dishonesty to us as union partners, but dishonesty to other stores that might want to unionize.”

Chaudhari encouraged community supporters to keep showing up to support the union, saying, “If we had any other kind of union events, we would love to know that the community, the people who order from this store and the regulars that our district manager could recognize say, ‘Hey, we don't agree with what you're doing to these people.’ That's what matters the most to us.”

Amassyali encouraged the community to support the union by tipping, showing up the store, expressing the support for the union and spreading the word about the unionized status of the store. They also promoted the No Contract, No Coffee Pledge, ( https://crm.broadstripes.com/ctf/SJID0H), an intake form where one can sign up to receive alerts about rallies, pickets, and other local events supporting Workers United. The Adopt-A-Store website ( https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe9M92V-DoySSA7Nmcqe1NTmveAJrOlLLnwQzg6-LHKuk2wSQ/viewform) is also available for people interested in signing up to help new stores become unionized.

Martinez closed simply by saying, “Unionize your workplaces. Give them hell.”

#DentonTX #StarbucksWorkersUnited