Baristas represented by Starbucks Workers United (SWU) have authorized the union to call a strike if the coffee giant’s new management refuses to sweeten the labor contract currently being negotiated.
The precise sticking points were not revealed by the union, but the announcement of the strike vote indicated wages, benefits and staffing levels were among the matters at issue.
The SWU stressed that it has not yet decided to call a strike, suggesting that the group was looking for additional leverage as negotiators sit down today for their last bargaining session of 2024.
Authorization to declare a walk-out at the 525 unionized Starbucks units was approved by 98% of the SWU members who voted, the labor group said.
The SWU noted that a new contract has eluded the parties despite each side spending “hundreds of hours of bargaining and countless hours of preparation for each session.
“The two parties have advanced dozens of tentative agreements at the table,” the SWU said in announcing the strike vote. “However, Starbucks has yet to bring a comprehensive economic package to the bargaining table and hundreds of as-yet unsettled unfair labor practices remain unresolved.”
The union also aired a desire to resolve litigation that has put $100 million in legal costs at stake.
Starbucks characterized the strike vote as a letdown. "It is disappointing that the union is considering a strike rather than focusing on what have been extremely productive negotiations," Phil Gee, a spokesperson for the company, said in a statement. "Since April we’ve scheduled and attended more than eight multi-day bargaining sessions where we’ve reached 30 meaningful agreements on dozens of topics Workers United delegates told us were important to them, including many economic issues."
Negotiations on a new labor agreement have been underway since September 2022. The expectation is that the back-and-forth will yield a template of sorts that each unionized store could offer to its staff. Technically, each unit’s crew is a separate union, a structure the SWU had insisted upon as it organized cafes. Convincing a majority of each store’s team to opt for collective bargaining was seen as less difficult than simultaneously wooing thousands of workers at the 11,161 cafes that Starbucks operates in North America. It franchises another 7,263 stores across the continent, with the overwhelming majority in the U.S., for a tally of 18,424.
In raising the possibility of a strike, SWU cited the compensation of new Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol as an indictment of the pay increases the company is offering.
The announcement noted that one of the SWU representatives at the bargaining table is Silvia Baldwin, a barista from a Philadelphia Starbucks who earns $16.50 an hour. If Niccol’s pay is prorated on an hourly basis, it comes out to $57,000.
“The company just announced I’m only getting a 2.5% raise next year, $0.40 an hour, which is hardly anything,” the announcement quotes Baldwin as saying. “It’s one Starbucks drink per week.”
Starbucks voiced confidence that an agreement could be reached. "We remain committed to working together and committed to reaching a final framework agreement," said Gee. "This is our goal. If the delegates want to serve the partners they represent, they need to continue the work of negotiating an agreement."
Update: Starbucks response to the vote has been added.
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