Posts tagged Starbucks
OPINION NLRB’s Pro Labor Bent OK with Sexist, Racist, Abusive Behavior
June 2, 2026 // Imagine if my co-worker called me a "gutter b****," "crack-head a**," and a "crack hoe." How about a male colleague calling me a "whore" and exposing his privates to me? Or let’s say a co- worker on strike yelled to me and others, "Go back to Africa, you bunch of f****** losers," and "f****** n***** scabs"? Should any of this behavior be tolerated by our employer? All of these are real, recent occurrences against women and Blacks at the hands of their union organizing colleagues, as the Institute for the American Worker catalogued.
Nashville council members, baristas press Starbucks on union contract
May 22, 2026 // "Starbucks is actively engaging with the union in good faith and put forward comprehensive proposals that build on Starbucks’ already competitive pay and industry-leading benefits, which includes baristas earning more than $30 an hour on average in pay and benefits, a new performance incentive of up to $1,200 per year and expanded tipping opportunities," Anderson said. The company has said it intends to bring 2,000 jobs to its Nashville office, set to take up an entire six-story building at Peabody Union just south of Ascend Amphitheater in downtown Nashville, in the next five years. Outside the courthouse, the group spoke of a growing union movement among local employees and urged the company to make good on its hiring promise. Just last week, workers at a Starbucks location in North Nashville voted to unionize.
Op-ed: George F. Will: It’s graduation time for disappointed little Lenins
May 11, 2026 // Disgruntled Starbucks workers embraced the United Auto Workers union, which they soon despised as too tepid about rectifying all injustices everywhere. Scheiber says the UAW now represents “roughly 100,000 higher-education workers” — graduate students and non-tenure-track faculty. Their numbers and grievances are growing faster than those of autoworkers. Many Starbucks workers agitating for unionization were berating the company for an inadequate commitment to LGBTQ rights. Then, on Oct. 7, 2023, they fell in love with Hamas. One organizer wore a sweatshirt emblazoned with a portrait of Karl Marx. An Apple store employee, who blamed her declining mental health on “the job” and “the stress of unionizing,” became, Scheiber writes, so “desperate” she sold her two $150 tickets to a Beyoncé concert. An employee at a Baltimore-area Apple store: “I had to get rid of Hulu” (a subscription-streaming service).
Workers Voted on Decertifying Unions 1,600 Times in the Past Decade. Teamsters Are the Most Common Target.
May 5, 2026 // Dozens of union decertification elections are held in workplaces across America every year, according to data collected by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The Teamsters are often the target. Of the 1,620 decertification elections that the NLRB tracked between 2016 and 2025, more than 23 percent sought to end Teamsters representation. The 373 decertification petitions targeting the Teamsters during that period were more than twice the number filed against the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which had the second most.
Union Now Is America’s New Strike Fund
April 20, 2026 // The American labor movement will soon have something it’s never had before: a centralized strike fund. Union Now, the new nonprofit and brainchild of Association of Flight Attendants-CWA International President Sara Nelson, began officially fundraising at a kickoff rally on Sunday, April 12th, in Manhattan. National leaders of the Democratic left were there in support; both Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani made rousing speeches, which suggests that the supporters Union Now hopes to enlist will go beyond those who are already union activists.
‘Power in the hands of people’: union leaders push to revive ailing US labor movement
April 15, 2026 // Leaders of some of the largest unions in the US have unveiled a drive to jumpstart the country’s ailing labor movement and combat growing wealth inequality under Donald Trump. To make it easier for workers to join a union, and strengthen the hand of new unions negotiating with powerful businesses, a string of prominent organizers joined together to launch Union Now, a non-profit designed to increase labor union density.
Apple to shutter its first unionized US store in Maryland
April 12, 2026 // The iPhone maker described the decision as "difficult", citing the departure of several retailers and worsening conditions at the Towson Town Center mall as key reasons for the closure. Apple said Towson employees will be eligible to apply for open roles at the company. In 2022, more than 100 Apple workers in Towson voted to join the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAM) union, marking a milestone for unionization at major U.S. corporations such as Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab and Starbucks (SBUX.O), opens new tab.
The Disillusioned College Grads Turning to the Labor Movement
April 10, 2026 // The fate of the college-educated working class is probably worse than most people assume. In one darkly hilarious detail from Scheiber’s book, he notes in a chapter about “salts” (people who intentionally go to work at a company in order to promote unionization) that one of these college-educated salts at Starbucks is actually making his highest wage ever there. When Starbucks is the best-paying job you’ve ever had with a college degree, something is truly wrong.
The fight continues: a look at union efforts in Washington state
April 10, 2026 // A Washington state cleaning company that receives hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars, is in negotiations with its unionized workers over the employees’ contract.
After months-long barista strike, Starbucks to resume bargaining with SBWU union
March 26, 2026 // Over 14,000 unionized baristas are demanding higher pay, better staffing and for Starbucks to resolve over 600 unfair labor practice charges that SBWU has filed with the National Labor Relations Board. The union has dialed back its pay increase demands since going on strike over four months ago. It’s now asking for a minimum hourly wage of $17 per hour, down from $20 per hour in November, and 4% annual pay raises, instead of 5%.