() — More than 2,000 employees at 112 Starbucks stores across the United States will start a one-day strike on Thursday, according to the union that has been organizing stores for the past year.
The union says it is on strike to protest retaliation against union supporters across the country. He is also protesting what he characterizes as the company’s refusal to negotiate a first labor agreement with the union. There are 264 stores that have voted for union representation. But no contracts have yet been negotiated, not even at the stores that voted nearly a year ago.
“This is to show them that we’re not playing games,” said Tyler Keeling, a 26-year-old union supporter who has worked at a Starbucks in Lakewood, California, near Los Angeles, for the past six years. “We have finished with their anti-union retaliation and they have walked away from the negotiation.”
Keeling and other union supporters say it was up to each individual store to participate in the national strike or not. Many stores have already staged brief walkouts over specific issues. But this is the first action at the national level.
“There is a lot of fear before a store decides to go on strike,” said Michelle Eisen, an organizer at the first Starbucks store to vote for the union last December. “Starbucks has been retaliating against union leaders across the country. But despite that fear, more than 2,000 workers across the country are on strike today and defending each other.”
When the Keeling store staged a one-day strike in August, Starbucks (SBUX) workers from nearby non-union stores joined the picket line, he said, with some customers bringing food and drinks to the strikers.
It is unclear how many of the stores affected by Thursday’s action will be able to stay open during the strike.
The protest comes on “Red Cup” day at Starbucks, when he hands out reusable holiday cups with certain beverage purchases that entitle customers to additional discounts and bonus points on future purchases.
“Culturally Red Cup Day is an important day at Starbucks. People go crazy over it,” Keeling said. He said that holding the strike on a day that has a high volume of customers is a great way to draw attention to anti-union activities.
The union is calling its strike the “Red Cup Rebellion” and is handing out red Starbucks Workers United union cups to customers instead.
The company was not immediately available for comment on the strike early Thursday. In the past, he has denied retaliating against any employee for their support of the union, and has blamed the union for the lack of progress at the bargaining table. Starbucks has defended the firings of union supporters that have taken place as a proper application of the rules that apply to all of its employees, whom it refers to as “partners.”
“Interest in a union does not exempt members from following policies and procedures that apply to all members,” Starbucks said in an earlier statement.
But this week the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees union representation votes, filed a nationwide cease and desist order in federal court to prevent Starbucks from retaliating against union supporters.
The NLRB filing said there had been a “number and pattern of unfair labor practices by Starbucks…particularly firings” targeting union supporters at its stores.
