Starbucks Korea workers form country's first coffee chain union
In joining organized labor, employees cited workloads and understaffing while arguing that complaints filed through the internal system were never addressed.
Customers crowd a Starbucks store in Seoul on June 17.
YONHAP
Workers at Starbucks Korea have formed a union, the first at a coffee chain in the country.
Employees joined the Korean Chemical, Textile and Food Industry Workers' Union on Thursday and set up a Starbucks chapter within it, the union said. The industrial labor group is affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions.
The chapter cited the company's failure to act on complaints raised through existing channels as the reason for organizing. Starbucks Korea has run an in-house consultative body called "gonggamhoe" — the "empathy council" — to collect staff opinions, but the chapter said it come to nothing.
"Every time, the company restricted how partners could be heard, using gonggamhoe that existed in name only, and papered over whatever the issue of the moment was by coaxing and placating instead of fixing anything," the chapter said, using the term the company uses to refer to its staff.
"It ignored partners' demands and instead pushed out events and operating rules that were harder to meet than before, without consulting anyone."
The chapter listed its other grievances: fewer people on shift, a steady rise in promotions and events, heavier workloads, wages too tight to live on, schedules that leave no room for a second job and difficulty filing industrial accident claims.
It did not name the "Tank Day" promotion, which drew heavy criticism in May, as one of the reasons for the formation of the union.
Starbucks Korea had planned to begin selling a large tumbler it calls a tank on May 18, the anniversary of the Gwangju Democratization Movement, in which the military killed hundreds of pro-democracy protesters in 1980. Shinsegae Group Chairman Chung Yong-jin apologized twice, and the head of Starbucks Korea was dismissed.
The company said it would deal with the new union by the book.
"We will communicate with the union in accordance with the relevant laws," Starbucks Korea said.
Starbucks Korea employs about 23,000 people. Unlike most coffee chains in the country, it does not franchise, and its head office employs baristas directly rather than leaving them to store managers.
BY JANG GU-SEUL [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
