Starbucks’ union members have voted to strike next week at the company’s U.S. stores, including ones in Chicago, unless it finalizes a contract agreement, the union said Wednesday.
The strike would begin on Nov. 13, which is the day Starbucks plans to distribute free reusable red cups. Red Cup Day, a Starbucks tradition since 2018, is typically one of the company’s busiest days of the year.
Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing baristas, didn’t say how many stores would be impacted. But it said workers in at least 25 cities planned to strike and more locations could be added if the union doesn’t see “substantial progress” toward finalizing a contract.
Starbucks employees held practice pickets last week in 60 cities nationwide, including in Chicago, Champaign and Rockford.
Barista Lupe Gutierrez joined the rally outside a Starbucks in Bucktown at 2101 W. Armitage Ave. Seeing news reports of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Chicago is “very frightening” said Gutierrez, who lives in Little Village, a Latino neighborhood that has been a target of deportation raids. She said given the tension in the city, people are afraid to be outside.
Yet it’s important for Starbucks workers to show up at rallies and speak out, otherwise “people in power will get away with what they’re getting away with. We’re not going to stop because we’re scared,” said Gutierrez, who has worked for the coffee chain for eight years.
Around 550 of Starbucks’ 10,000 company-operated U.S. stores are currently unionized. More stores have voted to unionize since 2021, but Starbucks closed 59 unionized stores in September as part of a larger restructuring.
In September, Starbucks announced plans to close hundreds of U.S. and Canadian stores — including at least 15 in Chicago — and lay off 900 nonretail employees as the company focuses on a turnaround.
Lenny Fritsch was a shift supervisor at a Starbucks in Edgewater that closed in September. Employees there heard on Friday morning that their store at 5964 N. Ridge Ave. would close that weekend.
“Two days later, it was boarded up and shuttered. Any store can be next, which is why we need to fight like hell. [The company] does not value us,” Fritsch said last week at the rally in Bucktown. It was hard to say goodbye to the store’s regular customers, said Fritsch, who had worked for the coffee chain for six years.
Employers expect workers to give two weeks’ notice if they resign, Gutierrez said, “but they can’t keep the same policy and respect for us.” Starbucks’ abrupt store closures in September was shocking but “felt like a power move because of how much traction unions are gathering,” she said.
The union and the company have yet to agree to a labor contract. In December 2023, Starbucks vowed to finalize an agreement by the end of 2024. But the company ousted Laxman Narasimhan, the CEO who made that promise, last fall. The union said progress has stalled under new chairman and CEO Brian Niccol.
Starbucks said Wednesday that it’s disappointed the union plans to strike instead of returning to the bargaining table.
“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,” Starbucks spokeswoman Jaci Anderson said Wednesday.
In a letter to Starbucks employees released Wednesday, Starbucks’ Chief Partner Officer Sara Kelly said the union has proposed an immediate 65% pay increase and a 77% increase over three years, with additional payments for things like weekends or days when Starbucks runs promotions. Kelly also said some proposals would significantly alter Starbucks’ operations, such as giving workers the ability to shut down mobile ordering if a store has more than five orders in the queue.
“These aren’t serious, evidence-based proposals,” Kelly said.
She emphasized that most company-owned stores as well as 7,000 licensed locations in places like airports will remain open if there is a strike.
The union said Starbucks is unfairly lumping together various economic proposals from the union to arrive at those pay raise figures.
Unionized baristas also said they don’t always get the 20 hours per week they need to be eligible for Starbucks’ benefits. They point to Starbucks’ generous pay package for Niccol, which saw him make $95.8 million in 2024. The package included $75 million in equity to make up for what he forfeited by his abrupt departure from Chipotle, his previous employer.
“Our fight is about actually making Starbucks jobs the best jobs in retail. Right now, it’s only the best job in retail for Brian Niccol,” said Jasmine Leli, a three-year Starbucks barista and strike captain from Buffalo, New York. Leli said starting pay for baristas in most states is $15.25 per hour.
The strike would echo previous labor actions against the company. In 2023, thousands of Starbucks workers at more than 200 stores walked off the job on Red Cup Day. Last year, a five-day strike ahead of Christmas closed 59 U.S. stores, including in Chicago.
Savannah Mote, a Starbucks barista who joined last week’s Bucktown rally, has participated in three strikes in recent years.
The company is “still paying lawyers but [they] don’t want to finalize our contracts,” said Mote, who has worked at Starbucks for six years. Meanwhile, many baristas “live paycheck to paycheck, myself included,” Mote said.