This New Year, Starbucks employees in the United States are unhappy. Historically, Starbucks has been the busiest during holiday periods, and the Starbucks union deliberately chose to initiate a five-day strike during the New Year in the U.S. as a protest against the employer. So far, this wave of strikes initiated by the Starbucks union has spread from Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle all the way to New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Denver, Pittsburgh, and Ohio.

The Starbucks union initiated a major strike on Christmas Eve.

Members of the Starbucks union come from 11,000 Starbucks locations across the U.S., with about 200,000 employees joining. The Starbucks union recently warned the employer that as many as 98% of union partners voted to protest issues such as low wages, staffing, and employee benefits.

In talks between Starbucks and union representatives in early 2024, they failed to reach an agreement on issues such as benefits and workload distribution, leading the union to choose the busiest holiday period to strike back against the employer.

Starbucks employees and baristas in the U.S. for low-wage workers

In a news statement from the Starbucks union, it was stated that Starbucks has not raised wages or safeguarded employee rights. Lauren Hollingsworth, a barista at Starbucks in Oregon, said that as a barista, her hourly wage is $15.49, but more than half of the baristas in the store have to drive 30 minutes to work because they cannot afford rent closer to their workplace. The union stated on Tuesday that they are ready to return to the negotiating table to address concerns about unfair labor treatment and wages.

In recent years, Starbucks has been the subject of complaints to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), with hundreds of cases, including a complaint from last year regarding unfair labor practices at a Starbucks location in Buffalo, New York.

Starbucks employees' demand: No new contract, no coffee for customers.

Consumers buying expensive coffee at Starbucks find it hard to imagine that baristas in the U.S. are paid very low wages. A friend of mine, while waiting for me at Starbucks during a trip to New York, remarked that a medium cup of coffee, including tax, costs nearly eight dollars, which surprised him. I laughed, saying it has always been that expensive.

Being a barista at Starbucks is a high-pressure, super multi-tasking job, similar to working at convenience stores in Taiwan, where one has to handle both cash register duties and make coffee. Baristas often face compressed working hours and impatient customers. However, if they had worked at convenience stores in Taiwan, they would find that the staff there handle even more tasks, like paying bills, microwaving food, cleaning, stocking shelves, and so on, all while performing multiple roles.

Starbucks' stock price was not affected by the strike, instead rising slightly by 2.47% to $89.91. The union's anxiety is justified; besides the strike initiated by the Starbucks union, Amazon workers have also begun their own strike wave. With Trump about to take office and his wealthy friends assuming key positions one by one, grassroots workers are fearful of the upcoming inflation and living pressures next year and hope to protest as most Americans start celebrating the New Year, seeking to gain more room for dialogue.

This article: No more coffee! The Starbucks union initiates the largest strike in history across the U.S. First appeared on Chain News ABMedia.