Some Starbucks workers in the U.S. are on strike. Here’s why

Unionized baristas from 65 Starbucks locations across the U.S. launched a strike on Thursday, strengthening their push to finalize a collective bargaining agreement addressing wage and staffing concerns.

The union and the company haven’t been in active negotiations since talks broke down in December 2024. According to a statement on Starbucks Workers United’s (SBWU) website, Starbucks presented its latest economic package in April, but it was voted down by union members.

In response to the vote, Starbucks issued a statement on April 25 that said, “This week, despite nearly 200 hours of negotiations and more than 130 proposals exchanged, Workers United made the decision to present an incomplete framework for single-store contracts to their delegates to vote on, effectively undermining our collective progress.”

Over 1,000 Starbucks workers across 40 cities in the U.S. are on strike, according to the union. Workers walked out on Starbucks’s Red Cup Day on Nov. 13, a sales event that generally kicks off the coffee chain’s busy holiday season.

“The strike comes after six months of Starbucks refusing to offer new proposals to address workers’ demands for better staffing, higher pay, and resolution for hundreds of unfair labour practice charges,” SBWU wrote on its website. CBC News asked the SBWU for comment on the strike action, but it didn’t respond in time for publication.  

In a statement to CBC News, Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson said “less than 1 per cent” of its coffeehouses were experiencing “any level of” disruption from the strike action. 

What they’re asking for 

The SBWU highlighted demands that it said Starbucks has not addressed, including issues with understaffing and wage increases.

“We have won a lot as a union … but Starbucks continues to stonewall us during contract negotiations. It’s time to get this done so we can all move forward,” the union said on its website. 

In its statement, Starbucks said: “We’re disappointed that Workers United, who represents less than four per cent of our partners, has called for a strike instead of returning to the bargaining table.”

SBWU wrote that “simply going to the bargaining table is pointless” if Starbucks won’t offer proposals that address the union’s demands. 

The SBWU has grown to represent thousands of baristas since the organization started with the first Starbucks unionized shop in Buffalo, New York, in 2021. Five-hundred-and-fifty Starbucks locations out of around 17,000 across the U.S. are currently unionized with the SBWU. 

Barry Eidlin, a professor of sociology at McGill University, suggested that the growth of the union’s campaign could be attributed to it having “a much more grassroots model than most unions have used in recent decades.”

Although its success in achieving key demands of wage increases and better staffing is still to be determined, Eidlin said the union has accomplished a considerable amount through its “bottom-up” organizational efforts in the past few years.

In September, hundreds of Starbucks locations across North America were shut down and 900 non-retail employees were laid off. 

“Each year, we open and close coffeehouses for a variety of reasons, from financial performance to lease expirations,” CEO Brian Niccol wrote in an open letter in September. “This is a more significant action that we understand will impact partners and customers. Our coffeehouses are centers of the community, and closing any location is difficult.”

What about Canada?

In May, the United Steelworkers (USW), which represents Starbucks workers in Canada,  announced that workers at five Starbucks locations in Ontario ratified their first union-led collective agreement. 

Before that, Starbucks shut down its only unionized store in Vancouver in 2023, which the USW Local 2009 responded to with a complaint. Although the B.C. Labour Relations Board found that Starbucks had a legitimate reason to close down the Vancouver location, it found that the company wrongfully made threats against an employee for unionizing efforts. 

The USW, which is the largest private-sector union in North America and represents 225,000 workers in Canada, said in a statement to CBC News that the demands of the striking workers in the U.S. “are not unreasonable.” 

“They’re the foundation of a healthy workplace, and we urge Starbucks to return to the table in good faith.”