Unionized Starbucks baristas announced a strike on Thursday amid stalled negotiations between the workers’ union and the company.

The union, Starbucks Workers United, announced the strike Thursday morning, saying it would span at least 65 stores across more than 40 cities, including Philadelphia. The strike begins on Starbucks’ Red Cup Day, and the union has planned pickets around the country.

Around 9 a.m. some 30 Starbucks employees and supporters marched from the 34th and Walnut to Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, holding green signs that read “No contract, no Starbucks!,” and “Baristas on strike!” That didn’t stop half a dozen or so customers at the Penn Medicine store from picking up their coffees around that time.

Red Cup Day is an annual event at Starbucks when the company typically gives out reusable red cups for the holiday season. The union has previously planned walkouts coinciding with Red Cup Day in recent years. The union said it has no set end date for the current strike.

Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson said “Less than 1% of our coffeehouses are experiencing any level of disruption and the vast majority of our 240,000 partners came to work ready to serve customers and celebrate Reusable Red Cup Day.”

Starbucks has several dozen stores in Philadelphia, and more in the surrounding counties. Of the city locations, eight are unionized. So are a couple more in the suburbs.

As they negotiate their first collective bargaining agreement since baristas unionized, Starbucks and the union have reached tentative agreements on 33 topics, the union has said. But financial proposals have become a sticking point.

“We made it really far in bargaining, and the company eventually began stalling around issues like better pay, better staffing, and also remedying all of the violations of labor law that they’ve committed,” said Silvia Baldwin, a barista at the 34th and Walnut Starbucks location, ahead of the strike.

The union said earlier this month that negotiations had stalled after union officials rejected an April proposal from the company. They say that Starbucks’ proposal fell short on wages and staffing levels.

The union has filed hundreds of unfair labor practices charges against Starbucks, alleging that the company has not bargained in good faith, and that it fired some workers in retaliation for union activities. Those charges remain unresolved, according to Starbucks Workers United.

The strike is intended to bring Starbucks back to the bargaining table and finish settling the contract, said Baldwin, who was picketing on Thursday morning.

Baldwin has been working at the University City Starbucks for 3½ years. She and her coworkers loves their jobs, she says. It’s the reason they found themselves standing in the cold on Thursday morning to fight for better pay and staffing.

“We are disappointed that Workers United, who only represents around 4% of our partners, has voted to authorize a strike instead of returning to the bargaining table. When they’re ready to come back, we’re ready to talk,” Anderson, the Starbucks spokesperson, said Wednesday. “Any agreement needs to reflect the reality that Starbucks already offers the best job in retail,” Anderson added, noting that its hourly workers’ pay and benefits together are worth more than $30 per hour on average.

Anderson added that employee turnover is nearly half of the industry average, and that the company receives over a million job applications a year.

Michelle Eisen, a spokesperson for the union, said Thursday morning on a call with the press that stores across the U.S. had already closed because of the strike. “When stores go on strike, the vast majority of them close within a few hours because of staffing issues,” said Eisen.

As of 9:30am, the 34th and Walnut store had closed in Philadelphia, according to Baldwin.

At the Starbucks on 22nd and South Streets around 10:40 am, at least two people were working at the store, and orders were waiting to be picked up. Inside, 10 customers were enjoying their drinks and working on laptops.

“In the event a coffeehouse experiences a temporary closure as a result of Workers United’s actions, I can assure there will be stores nearby open and ready to serve customers – we have plenty of Red Cups to give away and are excited to have a great day with our customers," Anderson said.

How did the baristas get here?

Starbucks baristas have been organizing for years, with their first union vote held in 2021 at a store in Buffalo. Starbucks Workers United represents over 12,000 Starbucks employees at more than 650 stores, as of October, the union has said, out of more than 18,000 stores nationwide and in Canada.

The company’s count of unionized workers and locations is lower than the union’s, according to Anderson.

The union has held a number of single-day and multi-day strikes, including on Red Cup Day, over recent years.

While only a small share of Starbucks stores overall are unionized, Starbucks’s success in part relies on the relationship between customers and baristas, said Todd Vachon, assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University, and a strike can potentially influence that relationship.

“It’s not going to really do any economic damage to Starbucks to have all these stores close for a day, but it can do economic damage in the long run if customers start to have sympathy with the workers and decide to shop elsewhere,” said Vachon.

Four years is a particularly long time to still be without a first union contract, said Vachon. But, he noted in recent decades, it’s taken longer for new unions to get a first agreement. Sometimes companies that don’t want their workers unionized will drag out the process, he said.

In September, Starbucks announced that it would shutter hundreds of stores nationwide, amid restructuring under new CEO Brian Niccol. That included six Philadelphia coffee shops, three of which were unionized.

The company has been grappling with declining sales at established stores amid the rising costs of coffee and labor. Niccol has also reworked Starbucks’ marketing strategy, moved to bring back baristas writing on cups, and set a goal of getting orders ready in four minutes or less.

“I want Starbucks to succeed. My livelihood depends on it,” Pittsburgh barista Dachi Spoltore said during Thursday’s press call. “I know Starbucks’ success has to include and prioritize the people who make the coffee, open the stores, and keep the customers coming back. We’re proud of our work, but we’re tired of being treated like we’re disposable.”

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