Sam Cornetta, a union organizer at the Farmingville Starbucks, said the win...

Sam Cornetta, a union organizer at the Farmingville Starbucks, said the win "doesn't feel real." Credit: Morgan Campbell

Workers at a Farmingville Starbucks have voted to unionize, making them the third store on the Island to do so since May.

With 13 ballots in favor and 1 against, employees at the coffee chain location at 2280 North Ocean Ave. voted to be recognized as part of Workers United New York New Jersey Regional Board, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.

Baristas at the location filed a petition in late April to hold a vote, before engaging in a nearly month-long mail-in election process. The votes were counted Tuesday by National Labor Relations Board representatives.

"We respect our partners’ right to organize and are committed to following the NLRB process,” a Starbucks spokeswoman said in a statement.  “We are listening and learning from the partners in these stores as we always do across the country."


Sam Cornetta, 22, a barista and organizer at the Farmingville shop, said the union win “doesn’t really feel real. I don’t think we imagined getting this far when we first started talking about it. We’re now part of this big movement.”

Cornetta, who lives in Farmingville, said workers at the store had been organizing for 7 months before Tuesday's vote count.

Two other Long Island Starbucks locations, in Westbury and Massapequa, have voted to unionize.

Workers at a Great Neck store voted 6-5 against the union, a result that Workers United has challenged with the NLRB, alleging that management engaged in unfair labor practices.

Late last month, Starbucks workers in Wantagh submitted a petition to NLRB seeking a  union vote.

The local labor push is part of a larger initiative across the country that began after two Buffalo locations successfully voted to unionize last fall. A third store upstate voted against unionizing at the time.

To date, more than 200 Starbucks stores across 32 states have voted to unionize, with around 40 voting against, according to statistics from More Perfect Union, a labor organizing non-profit. Over 300 stores nationwide have so far petitioned to hold a union vote. 

Starbucks has 100 locations on Long Island, not including those located inside Target or Barnes & Noble stores, according to both counties' health department records. The chain has about 9,000 company-owned locations nationwide.

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