When Benjamin Estrello started working at Starbucks four years ago, he knew he wanted to unionize his store. The then-nineteen-year-old had grown up in what he describes as a “very conservative” household in North Texas. When a friend of his came out as transgender in high school, “that experience made me think very deeply about my worldview, what matters and what separates us from one another,” Estrello said. “It caused me to question authority, leading me to the way I am now.”
By the time he got the Starbucks job in the Dallas, Texas, area, he was ready to organize.
As locations across the country followed the lead of the Buffalo, New York, store that in December 2021 became the first corporate-owned store in the United States to unionize, Estrello kept his head down, building rapport with his coworkers. That didn’t change until earlier this year, when he and a coworker were discussing Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), a division of Workers United/Service Employees International Union that now represents more than 12,000 workers at some 640 unionized stores. The two began finding other supporters at their location, and despite what Estrello describes as a formidable union-busting campaign, on September 9, 2025, the store voted 7-6 in favor of unionizing.
They are now on strike. Estrello’s store, along with sixty-four other unionized locations, walked off the job on November 14, Starbucks’ lucrative “Red Cup Day.” It’s an unfair labor practice (ULP) strike over what the workers say are the company’s violations of workers’ rights and stonewalling at the bargaining table, meaning strikers cannot be replaced once the strike concludes. The union says that additional stores will join the work stoppage in waves, reminiscent of the strategy the United Auto Workers employed during their 2023 auto strike.
Starbucks workers hoped it wouldn’t turn out this way. In February 2024, SBWU announced that it had achieved a breakthrough: Starbucks was…
Auteur: Alex N. Press
