Starbucks employees went on strike at dozens of locations across the country on Thursday, citing what they say is the company’s refusal to negotiate in good faith and anti-union tactics such as layoffs and store closures.
The work stoppage, which organizers have dubbed “the Red Cup Rebellion” after the Christmas-themed reusable cups that Starbucks hands out with select purchases, was expected to last all day. Striking workers said they would hand out union-branded cups to customers.
“Starbucks has abandoned the values that drew many of us to the company in the first place,” said Michelle Eisen, an employee who helped organize the first of more than 250 locations to unionize over the past year. affiliated, in a statement. “You can’t be pro-LGTBQ, pro-BLM, pro-sustainability and anti-union. We are organizing this Red Cup Day for a voice on the job and a real seat at the table.”
Starbucks, which has about 9,000 of its own stores in the United States, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thursday’s strike is the largest union action, at least in geographic scope, that the union has taken since the start of the campaign. The union said workers from more than 100 stores participated, though that number could not be independently verified.
Professional organizers have argued that such an escalation is necessary to shake hands with the company and allow the union to contract with concrete benefits such as higher wages and better sick leave benefits.
Gene Bruskin, a former organizer who advised Amazon workers who successfully unionized in Staten Island this year, said in an interview that a large, coordinated action such as a nationwide strike was important because it showed the company that “it will get worse, not better,” unless it comes out on the table and talks to them.
The wave of unionization spread quickly after a store in the Buffalo area won a union election in December, while dozens of stores across the country ran for union elections in the coming months. (The National Labor Relations Board later found that the workers of a second Buffalo-area store also won their vote in December.)
But by the end of spring, the campaign had slowed, and the rate of election filings dropped suddenly over the next few months, from about 70 in March to less than 10 in August.
Workers who support the union blamed the slowdown in the company’s response to their campaign, which they said included the firing of dozens of union supporters and pay raises and new benefits that applied only to non-member stores. had joined a union or were not engaged in a union. unionization.
The National Labor Relations Board has filed multiple complaints against the company in response to these allegations, and agency judges have so far ruled against the company in a few cases.
The company, which can appeal the rulings, has denied it acted illegally, saying it has fired union supporters only when they violate company policies, and is prohibited by law from unilaterally offering new benefits and wage increases at union stores. to enter. because it needs to be negotiated. Labor law experts have viewed this argument with skepticism.
Thursday’s strikes appear to reflect a new phase of the campaign, in which the union has seen little progress in the bargaining sessions that began in October. The company has walked away from many of the sessions alleging that employee representatives are violating agreed ground rules by attempting to broadcast the sessions using video chat software.
Casey Moore, a Buffalo area worker involved in the union campaign, denied that representatives wanted to broadcast bargaining sessions, saying the purpose of the video feed was to include workers who could not attend in person, an accommodation many companies have made since the start of the pandemic.
The escalation of union tactics began during the summer, as individual store workers went on strikes more frequently and longer, including workers at a Boston-area store who walked out for more than two months. Workers at the company’s New York City Roastery have been on strike for more than three weeks.
