I've blogged previously about unionization efforts by Starbucks (SBUX) retail employees (baristas and store-manager-level personnel) in New York City. Efforts are underway elsewhere too. In Chicago workers in a Logan Square store declared their wish to be represented by the IWW just before the Labor Day holiday weekend. The IWW is the "wobblies" -- a historically important union prior to the first world war, but hardly the Teamsters. However, a branch of the Teamsters: the Amalgamated Lithographers of America issued a press release in protest of the firing of an IWW member in NYC. Leaders in the Logan's Square unionization effort state they feel they should be paid $10 an hour -- which is a nice round number -- and are paid $7.50 an hour now. Most Starbucks employees are eligible for discount stock purchases and grants, but unionized employees in Canada, for example, are not eligible for this benefit. So that's a trade-off to consider.

Rarely do companies readily give over, or willingly share, a degree of control with a collective bargaining unit. Starbucks probably feels that the company offers competitive wages. As a pioneer in providing (at least some degree) of medical benefits to part-timers, management may even feel resentful of any implication that its employees need unions. Starbucks' stated position is that it does not discourage unionizing efforts -- which legally it would have to say anyway, so I put no stake either way in that claim.

Whether these union efforts will factor into the decision making process for investors, I can't say for certain, but frankly I doubt it. At this point most of the information I read about this effort comes from union websites, with an occasional mention in the popular press about an planned event, such as the Logan Square declaration. Retailers like Starbucks operate on such a thin margin that -- were Starbucks to become widely unionized -- there would be some transfer of money into union dues, but any significant increase in pay or benefits would result in the need to cut overall staff, something a union would not be likely to tolerate.

Michael Canfield is a private investor, a business and media writer, living in Seattle. He doesn't own stock in Starbucks.