Last December, Starbucks requested to reopen negotiations with Workers United. This move arrived a full two years after the first Starbucks cafe unionized and over a year after contract negotiations stalled out. In the interim, a trickle of cafes continued to unionize, and Workers United now claims 420+ wins, which remains a tiny number compared to the 9,000+ U.S. Starbucks locations. Yet 420 stores still add up to about 10,000 baristas in limbo without a single contract to the union’s name.

This is obviously not a fantastic union performance. Still, sadly, Starbucks hasn’t handled this saga smoothly, perhaps because they were caught off guard without a plan on how to respond to unions. Ex-CEO Howard Schultz initially responded with a combative stance, which led to the Starbucks Board of Directors scrutinizing the saga. Then the company engaged in public soul-searching and announced that bargaining would resume in late April, possibly with the goal of decaffeinating Workers United through a good-faith gesture of handing out raises and perks that were previously withheld from unionized stores.

Yet if CEO Laxman Narasimhan hoped that a return to bargaining would slow the company's unionization, that hasn’t happened. In March and April, Starbucks Workers United's victories trended upward again.

Last week, Workers United also asked allies to #ButtonUp4Bargaining by wearing buttons to spread awareness of the massive bargaining session. So, will Starbucks regret its request to reopen contract negotiations? That remains to be seen, but let’s discuss the logistics of the impending bargaining session:

The size of the meeting: Although this involves 400 stores, there won’t be quite that many representatives on hand. However, 150 invited workers randomly selected to attend via a lottery will form an unquestionably large bargaining committee. The atmosphere might be so chaotic as to impede progress.

The goal: To establish a “foundational framework” for collective bargaining for each individual store to have their contract be separately negotiated. The agenda will include discussing “a fair process for organizing and resolving litigation.”

The timeline: The length of these sessions, which will take place in Atlanta at an unspecified location, has not been announced.

The impact elsewhere: Employers will want to remain aware of the outcome of the talks being used as a model. The results may prompt union pressure on companies to be more open to taking a union neutrality stance or voluntarily recognizing organizing by card check.

More complications on the horizon: Hundreds of ULPS at the NLRB and other litigation must still be sorted out. That includes a pending Supreme Court decision on Starbucks’ terminating the so-called “Memphis Seven.” The union has also lodged around 430 ULP charges against the company, and unresolved appeals of board rulings remain. Starbucks and the union also sued each other over the company logo, landing in a political minefield surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A takeaway: Starbucks found itself unprepared for the wave of unionization that hit them. Yet few people could have imagined that this situation could have spiraled so far because, until recently, the retail and food service industries remained relatively immune from union activity.

And as we await the upcoming negotiations, there remains no time like the present for companies to prepare a playbook for warding off union activity.