Baristas at a number of Starbucks locations around Los Angeles and Chicago and Seattle went on strike Friday, kicking off a walkout that union officials said would include hundreds of the coffee service’s stores before Christmas Eve.
The union, Starbucks Workers United, said the strike was necessary after they failed to reach an agreement with the company on what would be the first contract for Starbucks workers. With five locations in the Los Angeles area and other key markets, employees hope to squeeze Starbucks during the busy holiday season, when its frappuccinos and themed drinks are in high demand.
The union said it plans to extend the work stoppage to hundreds of stores during the five-day strike that will end on Christmas Eve. It is looking to extract from Starbucks a stronger wage offer and an agreement to quickly settle unfair labor practice lawsuits filed by workers in recent years.
Starbucks moved into a strip mall on Alameda Street in Burbank that normally opens at 4:30 a.m. and is closed Friday. At 10 a.m. a crowd of about 30 Starbucks workers, union activists and supporters walked a picket line outside, chanting, “No contract, no coffee,” and, “Hey, Starbucks, you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side. .”
Kai Krawczeniuk, 25, a shift manager at a Burbank store, said Starbucks “made an unacceptable economic offer.”
“It was an insult to be honest. That made us feel like we have to do something, we have to show them that we intend to do business,” said Krawczeniuk.
In a statement, the union said Starbucks proposed an economic package earlier this month “with no new wage increases for union baristas now and only a 1.5% guarantee in future years.”
Starbucks said about 10 of its more than 10,000 company-owned stores in the United States did not open as planned today.
“It didn’t have a big impact on the performance of our store. “We are aware of disruptions at a few stores, but most of our U.S. stores remain open and serving customers as usual,” Starbucks spokesman Phil Gee said in an emailed statement.
The company criticized the union, saying it prematurely ended bargaining talks this week and suggested the immediate 64 percent wage increase “will not continue.”
“It is disappointing that they did not return to the table given the progress we have made so far,” said the company in its statement.
In addition to the Burbank location, four other stores in Southern California, including Van Nuys, Santa Clarita, Highland Park and Anaheim, were also hit by strikes, said Evelyn Zepeda, director of planning in California for Workers United.
Former Burbank Mayor Constantine Anthony, currently a member of the City Council, joined the Starbucks picket line Friday morning and said the company was “nickel-and-diming” workers. “It’s no coincidence,” he said, that the Starbucks strike coincided with a work stoppage by Amazon warehouse workers and delivery drivers ahead of Christmas.
“The workers showed up at the time when these two companies made the most profit, Christmas time,” said Anthony. “The power lies in the people, the people who make the drinks, the people who deliver the packages. If you want to give your customers a good product, you need to treat the people who deliver that product well.”
The new strike marks a major shift for Starbucks Workers United, which was founded in 2021 and has continued its campaign to lobby Starbucks baristas in the US to join. Hopes that the two sides will be able to reach an agreement have been high since February, when the company publicly pledged to work with the union and remain neutral in the labor organizing campaign.
The nature of reconciliation has been a hot topic at a company that has been fiercely resistant to a drive to unionize its workforce. Federal regulators found Starbucks repeatedly violated labor laws by punishing and firing workers who participated in unionization, store closings and halting contract negotiations.
The National Labor Relations Board polled 647 unions at Starbucks stores, and 109 of them were shortchanged, many more voted against and 528 currently have certified bargaining units, according to NLRB spokeswoman Kayla Blado. In California, 66 stores have held union elections and 44 of them have been recognized by the labor board.
Blado said workers have filed more than 700 wrongful-employment lawsuits against Starbucks, its subsidiary Siren Retail Corp., or the Littler Mendelson law firm. The union has not filed new lawsuits against Starbucks since late February.
In March, a federal board ordered Starbucks to stop threatening and investigating workers at the Cypress Park store over unionization efforts and posting a labor rights notice. In September, the board ordered Starbucks to stop threatening workers with the closure of the Los Angeles store if the planning process went ahead. And in October, the board found that former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz violated labor law by encouraging a Long Beach worker to quit after he raised concerns about unionization in 2022.
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