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By: Terence Cawley
On Wednesday, November 5, Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) announced the results of their strike authorization vote initiated on October 24.
A supermajority of 92% of SBWU voted to strike dozens of cities on one of the company’s most profitable days of the year, November 13, if Starbucks does not “finalize fair contracts and stop unionbusting.”
Baristas at unionized stores across the United States voted on whether to authorize a strike over the course of several days. The voting process coincided with a wave of seventy practice pickets occurring in sixty cities nationwide (including Worcester, MA; Epping, NH; and Providence, RI) from the 24th through November 1, as the union ramped up efforts to secure a fair first contract for union stores.
“Workers are done waiting around,” said Starbucks Workers United spokesperson Michelle Eisen. “We’re coming up on close to one year since the last official bargaining session with the company, so it seems like it’s the right time.”
Further strategy for the strike remains in the hands of membership, with ommittees that determine the timeline, duration, and scope of any future actions. “All of our escalation strategies are worker-developed,” said Eisen.
As the strike authorization ramped up, practice pickets offered an opportunity not just for workers to literally practice for a possible strike, as well as to show customers what such a strike would look like while demonstrating to Starbucks workers’ commitment to this fight.
We’re not bluffing. We’re showing how strong we are and making Starbucks ask: is this really something they want to deal with at their busiest time of the year?
A Brief History of Starbucks Workers United (SBWU)
Since Starbucks workers in Buffalo, N.Y. started Starbucks Workers United in August 2021, over 650 stores representing over 12,000 workers have unionized. However, none of these stores have reached a collective bargaining agreement.
Starbucks Workers United’s demands include changes that will enable more baristas to make a living wage, like higher pay, expanded healthcare benefits and paid leave, and more consistent scheduling. The union is also asking for stronger protections from racial and sexual harassment, as well as the enshrinement of current benefits in a contract so they cannot be revoked by the company later.
Starbucks initially opposed unionization efforts aggressively, leading to over 700 charges of Unfair Labor Practices (ULP) filed against Starbucks with the National Labor Relations Board. The company reached an agreement with Starbucks Workers United in February 2024 to negotiate a “foundational framework” for contracts for union stores. Starbucks then failed to meet its own deadline to agree to this framework by the end of 2024, leading to workers at over 300 Starbucks location going on strike on Christmas Eve for the largest labor action in company history.
Starbucks Workers United and the company entered mediation in February 2025. The union has made some progress in contract negotiations, reaching 33 tentative agreements with the company on important issues including just cause, dress codes, and worker health and safety. However, Starbucks continues to hold out on the workers’ three core demands: increasing worker hours to address understaffing and ensure workers qualify for benefits, increasing take-home pay, and resolving all outstanding ULP charges.
Eisen, who originally organized in Buffalo as part of the initial wave of unionization prior to becoming SBWU’s spokesperson, said:
More take-home pay means workers won’t have to choose between paying rent and buying groceries. Sufficient staffing of stores means one barista won’t have to be working the jobs of three baristas.”
The most recent offer from Starbucks, which the union rejected in April, offered no raises for union workers in their first year, 1.5 percent raises in subsequent years (“it is actually pennies when you do the math for most workers,” said Eisen), and no solutions for understaffing and the outstanding ULP charges. There was also no indication that the company was willing to move on these points.
Worker Dignity Means Customer Dignity
Beyond improving worker quality of life and repairing the damage Starbucks has done to its brand by being “the largest violator of U.S. labor law in modern history,” Eisen argues that the reforms the union is fighting for would also improve the customer experience. When she first started working for Starbucks fifteen years ago, she recalls how adequate staffing allowed stores to maintain higher quality standards for food and drinks.
Eisen noted:
You walk into a Starbucks now, and there are two people on the floor running back and forth trying to play the role of multiple positions because the stores aren’t staffed appropriately. If I haven’t been a long-time Starbucks customer and I walk into a Starbucks now, the likelihood of me coming back, seeing the state of the stores, is pretty slim. We have to invest in the people running these stores.
Starbucks Workers United claims on their website that Starbucks could finalize fair union contracts for less than the over $97 million Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol made for four months of work in 2024. Starbucks also covered the cost of Niccol commuting from his home in California to company headquarters in Seattle via private jet. The 2024 wage gap between Niccol and the median Starbucks worker was the largest of the 500 biggest public companies in the U.S., with Niccol making 6,666 times more than the average Starbucks employee.
On September 25, Starbucks announced that they would be closing hundreds of stores nationwide, along with firing 900 corporate workers. Of the 59 union stores included in this round of closures, eight of them were in Massachusetts. Several of those stores, like the Harvard Square and Davis Square locations, had just unionized within the last few months.
In the weeks following the closures, Starbucks Workers United held practice pickets at stores in 35 cities, including one at the shuttered Harvard Square store and one in New York City which received a supportive visit from mayoral candidate and DSA member Zohran Mamdani. According to Eisen, the closures, rather than weakening the union, have led to a surge in organizing leads as workers are more motivated than ever to win a fair contract.
“It’s another example of the company making decisions with little to no notice and absolutely no input from workers,” said Eisen. “A lot of non-union workers are saying, ‘whoa, we need to get in on this. It’s clear the company doesn’t care about us.’”
What Comes Next?
The strike authorization vote and practice pickets come at a critical time for Starbucks Workers United. The holiday season, typically the busiest and most profitable time of year for Starbucks, is approaching fast. A strike during this season could add to the company’s already significant financial woes.
Starbucks stock is down 6 percent since the beginning of 2025. Same-store sales have declined for six consecutive quarters.
Meanwhile, public pressure on Starbucks to bargain in good faith with its workers continues to intensify. In September, a coalition of 45 progressive organizations representing over 85 million people, including the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), sent an open letter to Niccol urging him to finalize fair union contracts with SBWU. Starbucks investors have also grown frustrated with the company’s unwillingness to resolve its labor issues, with several groups sending their own open letters to the Starbucks Board of Directors over the last few months.
“Every day, more and more workers are willing to join the fight despite how they’re being treated, which is giving me hope, especially with the current political climate,” said Eisen. “If workers are willing to take on the risk to fight, how can I not fight?”
Supporters can join SBWU on the picket line and sign the No Contract, No Coffee pledge at https://sbworkersunited.org/take-action/.
Terence Cawley is a member of Boston DSA.
The post Starbucks Workers United Supermajority Authorize ULP Strike for November 13 appeared first on Working Mass.
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