LABOR BRIEFING: Starbucks Union Seeks Landmark Contract

With union organizing drives brewing in numerous places across Starbucks’ coffee empire, contract negotiations involving 36 workers in upstate New York are shaping up to be a lodestar effort for baristas from Boston to Seattle.

Tough Talks: The workers hail from a single Starbucks Corp. shop in Buffalo, N.Y., and have already scored major victories by winning a union election and, earlier this week, when the company agreed to bargain with their union, marking the first time organized labor has gained a foothold within one of Starbucks’ U.S. properties. Now, the workers need to reach an inaugural collective bargaining agreement, ...