College students rally in support of Starbucks baristas urging boycott over contract negotiations

Starbucks baristas, students, elected officials and allies are planning rallies at over 40 college campuses across the US on Thursday to support the Starbucks Workers United boycott campaign as the union nears five years of deadlock with the company over contract negotiations.

Starbucks Workers United is seeking better pay and stronger staffing levels, including a $17 an hour minimum wage for baristas and a minimum staffing of three workers per store. It has called on the public to boycott Starbucks until its first contract is reached.

More than 700 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize, representing more than 12,000 baristas. It typically takes over 450 days for a new labor union to negotiate and reach its first contract, but it has been nearly five years since the first Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York, voted to unionize in December 2021.

Starbucks Workers United began to focus on college campuses in 2023, calling on campuses to cancel their contracts with Starbucks in protest against the company’s response to union-organizing efforts. In response, Cornell University and Pomona College did not renew their contracts with the company, while UCLA stopped offering Starbucks products in their cafes.

Rallies and events will take place at private and public universities across the country, including the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern and the University of Washington.

The union push come ahead of the company’s busy holiday season, including Starbucks’ Red Cup Day on 17 November, when customers receive a reusable holiday cup.

“Starbucks has been fueling the working class for decades, but they’re failing the workers that fuel their profits,” said Andrew Trinklein, a barista who is participating in an event at the University of Texas at Austin. “We’re really trying to push and get support from college campus students… in joining the boycott.”

His store recently unionized, and he expressed shock at how the company hired pricey union avoidance consultants in attempts to deter workers from unionizing. Starbucks has reportedly spent tens of millions of dollars related to union avoidance, though it has not disclosed the full costs relating to its union-organizing efforts.

Trinklein emphasized that employees are currently employed at-will, meaning they have no just-cause job security protections.

“Right now it’s just a toss-up whether we have a job tomorrow or not. Say they don’t like something that we’re doing – say we don’t write on a cup. We could be fired for it tomorrow,” Trinklein said, referring to the company’s policy requiring employees to write friendly messages on cups for customers. “But with this contract, that won’t be possible. We’ll have protections from stuff like that.”

Efforts to pressure Starbucks to negotiate were temporarily paused when the union and Starbucks reached an agreement on a path forward in February 2024. But negotiations broke down shortly after Brian Niccol took over as Starbucks CEO.

Niccol previously served as CEO of Chipotle from 2018 to 2024, and under his tenure, the company agreed to pay $240,000 to former workers as part of a settlement over a store closing in Maine after it unionized, which the National Labor Relations Board said was illegal. Chipotle has denied wrongdoing.

In recent years, Starbucks has been found to have violated federal labor law by the NLRB in several cases regarding its responses to union-organizing efforts. Starbucks has challenged these rulings.

In a statement, a Starbucks spokesperson said: “Workers United represents approximately 5% of our US partners, and we believe actions like these divert attention from the work at the bargaining table.”

“Our partners and coffeehouses are focused on bringing the joy of the holidays to life for our customers. Based on our experience with prior similar actions, we don’t expect any meaningful disruption and look forward to serving our customers through the holidays,” a spokesperson for Starbucks wrote in an email.

The spokesperson noted that “according to independent research, Starbucks offers the best overall pay and benefits in the industry, worth on average more than $30 per hour and including comprehensive healthcare, 100% upfront tuition coverage, company stock and up to 18 weeks of paid parental leave for partners working as little as 20 hours a week, which is why our turnover is among the industry’s lowest, and nearly 3 million people applied to wear the green apron last year”.

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