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Starbucks workers strike across NYC, demand the company start bargaining
By
Gwynne Hogan
Published Nov 17, 2022
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Gwynne Hogan/Gothamist
By
Gwynne Hogan
Published Nov 17, 2022
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Workers at seven New York City Starbucks locations walked off the job Thursday as part of a nationwide strike among newly unionized stores, who demanded the company come to the bargaining table to discuss scheduling, staffing and other pressing issues.
Unionized stores and ones with upcoming union votes in three boroughs are participating in the walkout, according to union organizers, including one store in Midtown, two locations in Astoria, one in Maspeth in Queens, and a Williamsburg and Bath Beach location in Brooklyn.
Employees at more than 100 stores nationwide participated in what the union calls a "Red Cup Rebellion," NPR reported. The job action coincides with Red Cup Day, a popular promotion in which the chain gives away limited-edition promotional cups.
The striking workers join employees of the company’s flagship Chelsea Roastery, who have been on strike for nearly a month over reports of bed bugs, mold, and a moth infestation there.
“We have a lot of support from a lot of our fellow workers and partners, obviously, but the retaliation has been kind of tough,” said Greyson, 25, a Starbucks employee who was striking in Midtown Thursday. He asked that his last name be withheld out of fear of retaliation.
His shop has yet to unionize but has a vote coming up. He said management has been sending people home for wearing union merchandise, spreading disinformation and threatening to “write people up.”
“It’s just been kind of exhausting, but of course we’re all here together, united for a greater cause,” he said.
The one-day action comes almost a year since the first Starbucks coffee shops in the country voted to unionize in Buffalo, New York last December. Since then more than 250 locations have voted to unionize according to Starbucks Workers United, which now represents more than 7,000 employees across the country.
But the newly unionized workers still don’t have their first contract as negotiations with Starbucks have stalled or never started to begin with.
Workers, eager to discuss scheduling staffing issues, and other proposals, have reported that Starbucks representatives don’t arrive to bargaining sessions, or show up only to leave a few minutes later.
The union has filed more than a dozen unfair labor charges for failing to negotiate in good faith, according to spokesperson Leanne Tory-Murphy. Starbucks has returned with their own allegations against the union Workers United.
Billionaire Starbucks founder Howard Shultz has resisted the surge in unionization at the company’s stores and spoke out against the efforts insisting he’s not anti-union, but “pro-Starbucks.”
Officials with the National Labor Relations Board have accused the company of intimidating, firing and threatening union organizers in a, “virulent, widespread and well-orchestrated response to employees’ protected organizing efforts,” the New York Times reported. In some cases, the company even unilaterally shuttered locations that voted to unionize like what happened in Ithaca, Portland, Maine, Kansas City, Missouri and Seattle, Washington.
Starbucks didn’t immediately didn’t return a request for comment on Thursday’s strike.
Despite the recent surge in unionized Starbucks coffee shops across the country, less 1% of the company’s more than 383,000 employees are currently represented by the union, Starbucks Workers United, Gothamist reported.
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labor
Gwynne Hogan
Gwynne Hogan is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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