Chanting “What’s outrageous? Starbucks wages! What’s appalling? Starbucks stalling! What’s disgusting? Union busting!”, Starbucks workers at stores across the country walked out Thursday. They are on strike against unfair labor practices and the company’s stonewalling at the bargaining table.
The strike started with sixty-five stores in forty cities, and could spread to as many as 550. The union, Starbucks Workers United, said it is prepared to make this the “longest and largest unfair labor practice strike in Starbucks history.” After rounds of practice pickets in October and November, workers voted 92 percent to strike.
The strike started on Starbucks’ big annual promotional “Red Cup Day,” a day many workers dread, Sabina Aguirre, a Columbus, Ohio barista told the Labor Notes Podcast. Starbucks distributes a reusable cup with most drinks as a promotion, leading to long lines. “It’s one of the busiest days for Starbucks all year,” said Aguirre. “It’s so well known to be a day of overwork and frustration on behalf of the employees.”
The union has organized 650 stores, but the company operates ten thousand stores in the United States, so striking baristas are asking everyone to shun all Starbucks stores, whether union or not, for the duration of the strike, and to tell the company why.
Starbucks started bargaining with its unionized workers in February of 2024, after inflicting record unfair labor practices starting in 2021, when the first stores in Buffalo organized with Starbucks Workers United, a division of Workers United/SEIU. But then progress stopped.
“It was just very disheartening, because so much progress was made in the earlier part of 2024, before the new CEO, Brian [Niccol], took over in September of last year,” said Tyler Cochran, who works in downtown Manhattan. “Obviously, we knew that getting to the economic portion of the bargaining is always going to be the most challenging part. So the timing there kind…
Auteur: Jenny Brown
