Santa Cruz Starbucks employees vote to unionize

SANTA CRUZ (CBS SF)  -- Workers at two Santa Cruz Starbucks stores have voted overwhelming to unionize, the first two coffee shops in California to join an emerging movement across the country to organized the Seattle-based behemoth's baristas and shift supervisors.

The measure to join Workers United passed by a 15-2 margin at the Starbucks store at Mission and Dufour streets and by a 13-1 count at the Starbucks located on Ocean and Water streets. Results of a vote at a third location was expected over the next few days.

The union said workers at 63 Starbucks stores across the country have now unionized.

"Let the floodgates open in California," Casey Moore, a spokesperson and organizer with Workers United, said at a video news conference.  

Emily Wheeler, a shift supervisor at the Mission and Dufour location, told the Los Angeles Times she and others at the store got a  "final push"  to join the union drive after the announcement of the campaign at the Ocean and Water location.

Santa Cruz workers told the Times said the vote was driven by numerous reasons.

They cited incidents of harassment, indecent exposure and threats of violence — particularly at the Ocean and Water location — and what they describe as little to no support from management or corporate executives.