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CNN
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Members of Starbucks Workers United staged their first strike in 13 months on Friday and plan an escalating strike between now and Christmas Eve, in what would become the union’s largest work stoppage since the organizing campaign began at the coffee shop three years ago.
The strike will begin Friday in three cities — Starbucks’ hometown of Seattle, as well as Chicago and Los Angeles, which the union described as key markets for the company. He said the strike would spread to hundreds of stores from coast to coast by Christmas Eve unless the company made a commitment to honor a framework to reach the company’s first union contract.
Starbucks Workers United won the first union election in Buffalo in December 2021 and has since organized store after store across the company’s network. It has won the right to represent about 12,000 workers at more than 500 stores, according to the most recent count from the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees representation elections in the private sector. The union also lost votes in about 100 stores. But in any case, that’s still only a fraction of the company’s 11,200 stores in the United States, employing about 201,000 workers as of the end of September.
The union has held a series of strikes at a selection of its represented stores since its first strike at about 100 locations in November 2022. In the past, many of the striking stores remained open as the company replaced striking union workers with managers and workers from nearby non-union shops.
But with the company and unions negotiating and reporting progress for most of this year, this is the first major strike called by the union since November 2023.
Whenever the union has held a strike against Starbucks, it has been for a limited duration, rather than the kind of open strike recently held at Boeing, the Big Three or Hollywood studios, in which members of unions stand on the picket line. until an agreement is reached. Shorter, fixed-duration strikes have grown in popularity with US unions in recent years, with occasional great success, such as the 2023 strike at health care giant Kaiser Permanente.
The union said it had a framework in place with Starbucks management since February on which to reach its first labor agreement as well as resolve outstanding legal grievances. But he said that the management has not respected that agreement.
“No one wants to hit. It’s a last resort, but Starbucks has broken its promise to thousands of baristas and left us with no choice,” Fatemeh Alhadjaboodi, a five-year Starbucks barista from Texas and bargaining delegate, said in a statement released by the union. “In a year when Starbucks invested so many millions in top executive talent, it has failed to present the baristas who make its company run with a sustainable economic proposition. This is just the beginning. We will do whatever it takes to make the company honor the commitment it made to us in February.”
The company insists it is committed to reaching a deal and is ready to return to the table. He said that the union is what has stopped the negotiations.
“It’s disappointing they didn’t come back to the table given the progress we’ve made to date. Since April, we have held more than nine bargaining sessions over 20 days,” Starbucks said in a statement. “We have reached over thirty (30) significant agreements on hundreds of topics that United Labor delegates told us were important to them, including many economic issues.”
The company said it pays an average of more than $18 an hour and offers what it describes as best-in-class benefits, including health care, free college tuition, paid family leave and company stock grants.
“No other retailer offers this type of comprehensive pay and benefits package,” the company said.
But the union claims Starbucks management has backed away from early progress since September, when Brian Niccol became its new chief executive.
“In October, November and December, Starbucks failed to bring to the table viable economic proposals that included real investment in baristas,” said Michelle Eisen, a 14-year Buffalo Starbucks barista who was one of the leaders of the first organizing effort. in that city, in a union statement. “This is a reversal of months and months of progress and promises from the company to work towards a ratification of the framework by the end of the year. We are ready to do whatever it takes to show the company the consequences of not keeping their promises to the baristas.”
The union pointed to the company’s executive compensation, particularly the package given to new CEO Brian Niccol, as a sign the company could do more. Niccol, who came to Starbucks in September, received a grant of 332,000 shares of Starbucks stock that will vest over the next three years as part of his contract. Those shares are worth $29.5 million as of Thursday’s close.
This story has been updated with additional reporting and context.