Starbucks workers at Edina cafe vote to unionize, Minnesota tally grows

Starbucks workers at the 50th and France cafe in Edina voted 9-6 to unionize with Starbucks Workers United, turning the suburban Twin Cities store into Minnesota’s 17th unionized Starbucks. For district leaders and nearby stores, the result adds another union location in a state where organizing has already spread from Moorhead and Duluth to St. Paul, Fridley, Chanhassen, St. Anthony and Roseville.

At store level, the vote points to the same day-to-day disputes that have driven the campaign across the country: how many hours are available, whether baristas can qualify for benefits without scrambling for extra shifts, and how staffing gets set when mobile orders, drive-thru timing and in-cafe rushes collide. Starbucks Workers United’s public contract goals include a $17 starting wage floor, 4% annual raises, three workers on the floor and available hours going first to current baristas, along with health and safety protections.

The Edina win lands amid a bargaining fight that has already stretched more than 18 months. Starbucks Workers United says national framework bargaining began in April 2024, the sides reached 33 tentative agreements in the first nine months, and Starbucks rejected the union’s economic proposals in December 2024. The union says that standoff helped fuel the open-ended Red Cup Rebellion strike that began Nov. 13, 2025, and it says it has filed more than 100 new unfair labor practice charges over the last year.

Starbucks has answered by saying it offers one of the best jobs in retail and by pointing to more than one million applicants a year. The company has also highlighted new performance bonuses, expanded tipping options and weekly pay, saying those enhancements will roll out to nonunion stores later this year and remain subject to bargaining in unionized locations. In March, Starbucks told CNBC it wanted to resume in-person bargaining as soon as March 30 and remain available through April.

Starbucks Workers United says it now represents more than 12,000 workers at more than 700 stores, a scale that has turned a campaign that began in 2021 in Buffalo into a national labor front. The Edina result does not just add another line to the tally. It gives workers in Minnesota one more example of how a store-by-store organizing drive keeps reshaping the conversation over schedules, staffing and power on the floor.