Starbucks workers vote to join union at one store in New York's Buffalo

 Starbucks employees voted to join a union at one store in Buffalo, New York, delivering the coffee chain its first unionized company-owned location in the US

Starbucks Corp employees on Thursday voted to join a union at one store in Buffalo, New York, delivering the coffee chain its first unionized company-owned location in the United States. Workers at a second location in the city voted to reject the drive to organize.

Employees at one Starbucks location in Buffalo voted to join Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.

The vote count for a third store in the upstate New York city ended without a definitive result because a number of ballots were still under review, a process that could stretch into early next year, according to Ian Hayes, an attorney for the union.

"We will keep listening," Rossann Williams, president of Starbucks North America, said in a letter to employees after the vote. "These are preliminary results with no immediate changes to our partner relationship as the NLRB process continues."

The closely watched results come as Corporate America eyes new union organizing campaigns amid a U.S. labor shortage that has already led to higher wages at most large retailer and restaurant chains. Experts said the Starbucks results may encourage union activity at other companies.

"Although it's a small number of workers, the result has huge symbolic importance," said John Logan, a labor professor at San Francisco State University.

E-commerce company Amazon.com Inc is facing a new election at one of its Alabama warehouses after the results of the previous election - which the union lost - were overturned last month.

The Buffalo election involved just over 100 workers altogether, a tiny fraction of Starbucks' roughly 220,000 employees in its U.S. cafes.