Posts tagged baristas
After Nearly Three Months, NYC Starbucks Workers Quietly End Strike
February 9, 2026 // Starbucks workers at 10 unionized New York City stores quietly returned to work on Thursday, ending their nearly three-month strike after failing to force management back to the bargaining table for a first contract. Workers in more than 85 cities nationwide have walked off the job since Nov. 13 in what the union called a “Red Cup Rebellion,” to protest the company’s alleged refusal to finalize a collective bargaining agreement with their union, Starbucks Workers United.
Majority of Starbucks’ striking baristas are returning to work
December 30, 2025 // At the end of last week, the union informed us that partners at 166 of the 215 coffeehouses on their strike list would like to unconditionally return to work, meaning they are ready to return under the current terms of their employment," Kelly wrote. While some employees will resume their roles, about 25% will continue to strike, the union said, adding that the timeline for the strike is open-ended, with a number of workers ready to join the picket line in January if progress hasn't been made. Read more at: https://www.mahoningmatters.com/news/business/article313938985.html#storylink=cpy
Starbucks Strike Enters Third Week Deadlocked With Both Sides Holding Firm
December 2, 2025 // While the union is waiting for the company to put forward “new proposals that address union baristas’ demands,” Starbucks is holding out for contract negotiations to resume. The company has made clear that the union’s pay demands, such as a 65% wage increase, are untenable, since the company already offers one of the best wage and benefit packages in retail, totaling $30 per hour for workers who average 20 hours or more per week. Supporting that claim, Starbucks receives more than a million job applications per year and has a turnover rate that is less than half that of the retail industry. To date, the company has made no statement regarding the ULP allegations. However, in June 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Starbucks, finding that it followed the law after terminating seven Memphis employees during unionization efforts.
Twin Cities Starbucks picketed during strike is vandalized, police say
November 21, 2025 // Non-striking employees at the St. Anthony coffeeshop at 3704 Silver Lake Road arrived 30 minutes before its 7 a.m. scheduled opening to find “a substance consistent with super glue and expanding foam had been applied to the locks” moments earlier, a police statement read. One employee told police about interacting with people in a vehicle nearby and believed to be connected to a group expecting to picket outside Wednesday.
Red Cup clapback: Pa. Starbucks workers to strike
November 11, 2025 // Starbucks baristas from across Pennsylvania, and the country, are kicking off the coffee company’s holiday season with a one-day strike on Thursday, which coincides with its annual “Red Cup Day.” According to the Associated Press, Red Cup Day is one of Starbucks’ busiest days of the year, when it distributes free, reusable red coffee cups to customers.
Starbucks workers union planning pickets, rallies through Nov. 2. See in which states
October 27, 2025 // Starbucks, for its part, says it is willing to bargain with the union, which the company says represents about 9,500 of its "partners," or employees. "Workers United only represents around 4% of our partners but chose to walk away from the bargaining table. If they’re ready to come back, we’re ready to talk," corporate spokesperson Jaci Anderson said in a statement to USA TODAY. "Any agreement needs to reflect the reality that Starbucks already offers the best job in retail including more than $30 an hour on average in pay and benefits for hourly partners," Anderson said. "We’re investing over $500 million to put more partners in stores during busy times. The facts show people like working at Starbucks. Partner engagement is up, turnover is nearly half the industry average, and we get more than 1 million job applications a year.”
Starbucks Baristas File Brief Urging Supreme Court to Allow President to Remove Rogue Agency Officers
October 21, 2025 // The brief concludes with the Foundation’s legal argument that Humphrey’s “cannot neuter the President’s ability to supervise those who exercise substantial parts of [executive] power.” Therefore, the Supreme Court “should make clear that the President’s removal power applies to every agency that exercises executive power, including the NLRB.”
Starbucks store closings: 59 unionized locations on doomed list in company restructuring
October 2, 2025 // Baristas from closing stores will either be offered severance packages or transferred to new locations, which has led uneasy employees to crowdsource their own list of shuttering locations as they wait for official word. The stakes remain high for Starbucks if it fails to settle a contract and workers go on strike ahead of the holiday season, which is the busiest and most profitable time of the year for the company.
The Castro’s central Starbucks — ‘Bearbucks’ — shutters abruptly
September 27, 2025 // Affectionately known as “Bearbucks” — owing to the prevalence of LGBTQ+ customers — that location was the first Starbucks in the city to unionize, during a nationwide push in 2022. At the time, workers cited difficulties at the cafe during and after the pandemic, including a four-month closure for plumbing issues. Citing declining sales, the company has shuttered at least six cafes in San Francisco in the past year, most of them downtown.
Why new Starbucks dress code prompted over 2,000 baristas to walk out on strike
May 20, 2025 // Starbucks said in its announcement the new design provided a "more defined color palette includes any solid black short and long-sleeved crewneck, collared, or button-up shirts and any shade of khaki, black, or blue denim bottoms" and it's "making a new line of company branded t-shirts available to partners, who will receive two at no cost." What they're saying: A striking barista said in a video posted Thursday to the union's Bluesky account that Starbucks "made a big decision about our jobs without bargaining with us, and this time it's a new restrictive dress code, one that we're paying or out of pocket."