Posts tagged Starbucks Workers United
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.
St. Louis unions rally alongside striking Boeing workers
September 19, 2025 // On Friday morning, the union is set to vote on a contract proposed by its own negotiating committee. It includes an updated 401(k) plan, higher wage increases for employees at the top of the pay scale and a $10,000 signing bonus, up from the $4,000 bonus in the previous contract. If union members approve the contract, it will be submitted to Boeing as a pre-approved agreement. If Boeing declines the proposal, the union said it will continue to strike and be ready to return to the negotiation table with the company.
NY Starbucks Barista Asks Federal Labor Board to Restore Employees’ Right to Vote Out SBWU Union Officials
September 14, 2025 // SBWU union bosses prevented worker-requested union removal vote by filing unverified charges, never demonstrated link to worker effort. Starbucks barista Nadia Kuban is asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC, to overturn federal policies that are preventing her colleagues from having a vote to remove unwanted Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union officials from their workplace. Kuban is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Op-ed: Can Zohran Make NYC a Union Town Again?
September 9, 2025 // The new mayor could host big online unionization trainings with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez have already done. If this led even a small fraction of Zohran’s 60,000-plus volunteers and over 6 million social media followers to start organizing their own workplaces—or to take a strategic job to unionize it—this could potentially generate thousands of new unionization campaigns. And were Mamdani to act upon our proposal to launch a broad Movement for an Affordable New York (MANY), then the pool of new potential workplace organizers would grow significantly.
Is “Salting” the Future of Organized Labor?
August 3, 2025 // MA: Another point to just make is that as a salt, you have to earn your keep. Yes, you’re in closer proximity to people, and you can talk to them and build relationships. But part of that is also like doing the work, being taken seriously as a fellow worker, who knows what the hell you’re talking about. JB: Exactly. You have to be a good coworker. I worked at Starbucks for eight months before ever saying the word union. And my role wasn’t to be the vanguard of the revolution. It was to find people, like Michelle Eisen, whose family were coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, who had a deep sense of social justice and a deep commitment to unions, and who quickly saw that her legacy at Starbucks could be helping build a union for everybody who would come after her.
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."
Starbucks union workers strike over dress code changes
May 16, 2025 // The company restricted its dress code to solid black long and short-sleeved shirts, company branded t-shirts and black, khaki or blue denim pants — a significant restriction of its dress rules. The union also filed an amendment to unfair labor practice charges stating the dress code changes “materially differed from both the status quo and what the parties had tentatively agreed to at the bargaining table, thus undermining the Union’s representational status.”
Starbucks announces new barista dress code. Here’s what it looks like
April 17, 2025 // Starting on May 12, the company will require that its workers wear simple colors including any solid black short- or long-sleeved crew-neck, collared or button-up shirts with khaki, black or blue denim bottoms, according to its website. The announcement comes more than a week after Starbucks Workers United, the union representing workers at more than 525 stores across the U.S., sent a letter to the company demanding no dress code changes be implemented at union-represented stores until bargaining is completed.
Starbucks workers strike in six cities across the US with multiple supporters arrested
March 14, 2025 // In Chicago, 11 employees were arrested after staging a sit-in at one of the city’s first union Starbucks locations. Five people were arrested in Pittsburgh as well. Chicago police told the Seattle Times that strikers were arrested for criminal trespass “on signed complaints from an affected business.”
Park Slope Starbucks closing, after October unionization
January 17, 2025 // While Starbucks said in a statement that the company has “engaged Workers United to discuss transfer options for the 14 partners currently employed at this location to continue working at nearby stores,” Sammy said Starbucks had told partners they were not guaranteed a job at another store, but Starbucks would do its best to find them a position within the company.