Thousands of unionized Starbucks workers walked off the job Thursday to press their demands for contract negotiations and highlight their grievances over staffing and scheduling problems.
The disruption coincides with an annual Starbucks promotion, Red Cup Day, in which customers receive bright red reusable cups when they order a holiday-themed drink such as a Sugar Cookie Almondmilk Latte.
The Starbucks Workers United union, which represents the striking workers, said events like Red Cup Day force employees to handle more orders than usual but do not have enough staff.
Unionized workers say the company has refused to negotiate over staffing and scheduling issues that are particularly acute on such days, and the union filed an unfair labor practice lawsuit with the National Labor Relations Board this year.
The union represents more than 9,000 Starbucks workers in more than 300 stores across the country. Employees at some unionized stores began the strike Wednesday, surprising the company, which knew about Thursday’s action.
Starbucks says it is the union that has prevented collective bargaining by insisting on holding meetings online and observing rank-and-file rather than having bargaining teams meet in person.
“We hope that Workers United’s priorities will shift to include the shared success of our partners and negotiating contracts for those they represent,” Andrew Trull, a spokesman for the company, said in a statement.
The union is calling on the company to stop mobile ordering on promotional days as they are said to be becoming more common.
Daisy Federspiel-Baier, a shift manager at Starbucks in Seattle, said her store received more than 200 orders in half an hour as part of an October promotion that gave customers 50 percent off any drink. The store was so crowded that some drinks and food were wasted and orders were stopped, Ms. Federspiel-Baier said.
“I have watched baristas on the verge of nervous breakdowns, being verbally abused by customers and feeling pressured by their superiors to continue to perform even though it was unreasonable,” she said.
Rachel Simandl is a shift manager at a unionized Starbucks store in Chicago, where employees walked off work on Wednesday and Thursday. Ms Simandl said chronic staff shortages were leaving workers exhausted and hurting business through longer wait times for customers and poorer quality of service.
“What we clearly need is more coverage on the ground,” she said. “Instead of just three people, four or five people. It makes a big difference in the way the day goes.”
Thursday’s strike is the latest development in the fight between the company and the union since employees at a Buffalo store voted to form a union in 2021. Of the stores whose election results were certified by the National Labor Relations Board, 363 stores voted in favor of unionization, while 71 voted against unionization.
In September, a Labor Department judge ruled that Starbucks violated federal law by limiting pay raises and benefit improvements to non-union workers. Another administrative law judge ruled in March that Starbucks repeatedly violated federal labor laws by illegally manipulating union organizing and firing employees who wanted to unionize.
In June, unionized workers called a week-long strike at more than 150 stores, protesting what they said was the company’s ban on Pride Month clothing and its treatment of LGBTQ employees, a claim management denied. Starbucks said the protest temporarily closed 21 stores.
Noam Scheiber contributed reporting.