Starbucks union goes on strike in three cities

Source: CNN

By Chris Isidore, Vanessa Yurkevich and Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN
5 minute read
Updated 12:19 PM EST, Fri December 20, 2024

Members of Starbucks Workers United staged their first strike in 13 months 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 started at the coffee retailer three years ago.

The strike is due to start Friday in three cities — Starbucks’ hometown, Seattle, as well as Chicago and Los Angeles, which the union described as key markets for the company. It said the strike will spread to hundreds of stores from coast to coast by Christmas Eve unless the company makes a commitment to honor a framework to reach the first union contract at the company.

Starbucks Workers United won its first union election in Buffalo in December 2021 and has been organizing store-by-store across the company’s network since. It has won the right to represent 12,000 workers at 528 stores, according to the most recent count from the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees representation elections in the private sector. The union has also lost votes at 100 stores. But in either case, that is still just a fraction of the company’s 11,200 company-operated stores in the United States, employing about 201,000 workers as of the end of September.

The fight for the first contract
The union 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 stores on strike remained open, as the company replaced the unionized striking workers with managers and workers from nearby non-union stores. A person familiar with the impact of the strikes told CNN only 10 stores in total, spread among the three cities, did not open as normal on Friday.


The Starbucks Workers United union started a strike in three cities - Seattle, Chicago and Los Angeles - on Friday. Angus Mordant/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/20/business/starbucks-strike/index.html