Mike Perillo, a barista at the Starbucks in Orland Square mall, said he and some of his co-workers struggle to afford both groceries and rent some months based on their wages.
But in telling his manager of this, he said he did not feel heard and that she told him to find another job.
Perillo and other baristas working at Orland Square voted Aug. 1 to join Starbucks Workers United, a nationwide union of more than 12,000 baristas in about 600 locations in 45 states, as of July, according to a union statement.
The union, which began in Buffalo, New York, in 2021, recently filed more than 100 unfair labor practice charges against the company, demanding higher wages and better benefits.
For Perillo, joining the union means having a voice to be heard by the company.
“That my problems aren’t going to be swept under the table, that they’re going to acknowledge them, and what I hope out of all of this, that most of these problems get fixed because I love working at Starbucks,” Perillo said.
He said he has regular customers who care about him, and that he likes to connect and positively affect people’s days through the job.
Throughout the process of joining the union and negotiating contracts, Perillo said he hopes to voice the struggle to pay rent and buy groceries on his hourly pay. He also said he does not feel he is treated well by management.
He said one manager told him, in front of customers, to be thankful for his pay and find a different job if he had complaints, and that his co-workers have shared similar experiences.
“In that moment, I could tell that my manager did not care if I can make ends meet, that she’ll just find someone else,” Perillo said. “That’s not how companies should treat their employees.”
Perillo also said the store needs more employees scheduled during busy hours, as he said it’s usually only two workers, which can lead to burnout.
Nick Brown, a shift supervisor of five years in Orland Park, agrees and said shifts can be inconsistent.
“We deserve consistent schedules, a living wage and a louder voice at work,” said Brown. “I hope that by unionizing we can model for other stores in our community.”
Workers at two Chicago Starbucks became the first unionized Starbucks workers in the city in 2022, and similar efforts have increased since.
A Starbucks spokesperson said recently that hourly employees receive pay above the industry average and “best-in-class benefits,” which together are worth an average of $30 per hour for those who work at least 20 hours per week.
The company and union, according to the spokesperson, have held more than nine bargaining sessions over 20 days and three mediation sessions over five days with a federal mediator and have reached over thirty “meaningful agreements on hundreds of topics Workers United delegates told us were important to them.”
“We respect our partners right to choose, through a fair and democratic process, to be represented by a union or not to be represented by a union,” said the Starbucks spokesperson. “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.”
Yet the union in a statement said the company needs to come back to the bargaining table to address three remaining core demands – better hours to improve staffing in stores, higher take-home pay to afford bills and “remedying the unresolved unfair labor practice charges for union busting.”
As far as next steps, Perillo said he hopes the Starbucks employees in Orland Square will connect with each other and meet more often, then move forward to connecting with other local stores and collectively voice concerns together, eventually having worker protections through a negotiated contract.
He hopes to have a “collection of workers, just like myself, where we have each others back, we have support.”
awright@chicagotribune.com
