A National City Starbucks could be the next location to join thousands of other employees around the country who unionized with Starbucks Workers United.
Francesca Cruz has been a barista with Starbucks for more than two years. She works at the Highland and 30th Street location.
“I love being a barista, I love working with my coworkers,” Cruz said. “I would call us family.”
Starbucks stores in San Diego County Unionizing
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At the location she works at in National City, she said there’s about 23 employees. She also said like any other job, there are good and bad days, but recently the bad seem to outweigh the good.
“We worked really hard to handle it together,” Cruz said.
She and others at her Starbucks location are asking the National Labor Relations Board to unionize with Starbucks Workers United.
“We all wanted the same thing,” Cruz said.
The Highland and 30th partners are joining a nationwide movement of more than 9,000 baristas organizing for better working conditions, fair wages, and consistent schedules. Their store would be the 3rd unionized Starbucks in the San Diego area, joining a location in Encinitas, that unionized in May 2023 and the Hillcrest location in San Diego that unionized in August 2023, which was the first in the City of San Diego to unionize.
NBC 7 reached out to Starbucks for comment and a spokesperson sent us this statement:
As a next step, we welcome the opportunity for each partner at our Highland & 30th store in National City, California, to vote in a neutral, secret ballot election conducted by the NLRB — which allows all partners to make their own informed decision regarding union representation.
Cruz said since the announcement, morale has been boosted and she’s hopeful things will continue to move in a positive direction.
“After we found out that we can get some help out of that, it really helped us come together,” Cruz said.
