Starbucks union baristas walk out on Red Cup Day in push for contract talks

By Juveria Tabassum and Waylon Cunningham (Reuters) -More than 1,000 Starbucks unionized baristas in over 40 U.S. cities launched an open-ended strike on Thursday, intensifying their push for a collective bargaining agreement over pay and other benefits at the coffee giant. The walkout will begin with 65 stores, the Starbucks Workers United said, coinciding with Red Cup Day, a busy sales event that typically drives higher customer visits at its more than 17,000 coffeehouses in the U.S. So far, Starbucks was seeing minimal impact from the walkouts with less than 1% of its stores seeing any level of disruption, a company spokesperson told Reuters. The union, which represents employees at about 550 U.S. stores, plans to rally at 4 p.m. local time in more than a dozen cities and warned the strike could become the largest and longest in the history of Starbucks. Stores in cities, including Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, Dallas, Austin and Portland, will join the work stoppage, it said. Some locations had already shut down for the day, a union spokesperson told journalists on a media call. The strike comes as Starbucks under CEO Brian Niccol shuts hundreds of underperforming stores, including the unionized flagship Seattle location, this year while trimming corporate roles to control costs. Niccol has stressed on improving service times and in-store experience in the U.S. to revive demand for beverages as sales remain flat or negative for the past seven quarters. The union has filed more than 1,000 charges to the National Labor Relations Board for alleged unfair labor practices such as firing unionizing baristas and last week voted to authorize a strike if a contract was not finalized by November 13. "We're striking for a fair union contract, resolution of unfair labor practices and a better future at Starbucks," said Dachi Spoltore, a Starbucks barista from Pittsburgh who joined the strike. "For every one barista on strike, dozens more allies and customers have pledged to honor the picket line and not buy Starbucks while we're on strike." NEGOTIATIONS DRAG ON Starbucks has said it pays an average wage of $19 an hour and offers employees who work at least 20 hours a week benefits including healthcare, parental leave and tuition for online classes at Arizona State University. The union said starting wages are $15.25 per hour in about 33 states and the average barista gets less than 20 hours per week. Talks between the union and the company stretched for about eight months in 2024 but broke down in December after which workers went on strike during the key holiday period. Niccol had said in September last year when he took over as CEO that he was committed to dialogue. However, Lynne Fox, union's international president, said on a call with journalists that things changed once Niccol took office. "A year into Niccol's tenure, negotiations have gone backwards after months of steady progress and good faith negotiations last year," Fox said. In April this year, the union voted to reject a Starbucks proposal that guaranteed annual raises of at least 2%, saying it did not offer changes to economic benefits such as healthcare, or an immediate pay hike. The union represents roughly 9,500 workers, or 4% of its cafe workforce, Starbucks has said. PAST PROTESTS This is not the first time that the union is going on a strike on Red Cup Day, when Starbucks hands out reusable red holiday-themed cups to customers for free on coffee purchases. In 2022, workers at about 100 U.S. stores went on a one-day strike on Red Cup Day in protest against firings and store closures that they said are illegal retaliation by Starbucks against them. Workers at hundreds of stores also walked off their jobs on Red Cup day in 2023, demanding improved staffing and schedules for the promotional event, which they said was one of the "most infamously hard, understaffed days." (Reporting by Waylon Cunningham in New York and Juveria Tabassum, Savyata Mishra and Neil J. Kannat in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Arun Koyyur)

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