No Contract, No Coffee: worker upsurge, corporate resistance, and the long fight to unionize Starbucks

ABSTRACT

In November 2025, Starbucks Workers United launched a “Red Cup Rebellion” across the U.S. Expanding to 130 cities, the strike represented the biggest bout of industrial action at Starbucks since the company’s foundation (1971). At the time, reporting linked the walkout to the post-2021 unionization drive, originating in Buffalo. By November 2025, Starbucks workers had won over 650 elections, but the company had still not signed a contract, precipitating the strike. This article reviews the long fight to organize Starbucks and the strike, locating both within broader labor trends. It argues that the Starbucks story was not entirely new; rather, it illustrated how declining labor conditions since the 1980s produced a strong desire for unionization. Retail and service sector workers, with low wages and weak benefits, led the way. Starbucks also epitomized the rise in corporate resistance to organized labor, a feature of the post-1970 era. In addition to press and labor board records, this article uses detailed primary accounts by former Buffalo barista Jaz Brisack and three-time CEO Howard Schultz to examine these contrasting themes of workplace organization and corporate resistance. Overall, the Starbucks’ struggle epitomized the difficulties U.S. workers have long faced in turning organizing victories into contracts.

On 13 November 2025, Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) launched a ‘Red Cup Rebellion’ across the U.S. Hitting the company at its busiest time of year – when it gave red cups to consumers who bought a holiday beverage – the strike generated widespread attention and press coverage (for example, Kaye, Citation2025a; Sainato, Citation2025c). According to the union, the ‘No Contract, No Coffee’ walkout was the only way to protest Starbucks’ ‘historic union busting and failure to finalize a fair union contract.’ It followed four years of negotiations, which stalled over workers’ demands for better staffing, higher pay, and settlement of ‘hundreds’ of unfair labor practice (ULP) charges (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025e). Initially affecting over 1,000 baristas in 40 cities, including Austin, New York, Philadelphia, and Seattle, the walkout spread to new locations, from coast to coast (Hirschfeld & Reuters, Citation2025). ‘We’re turning the Red Cup season into the Red Cup Rebellion,’ commented barista Dachi Spoltore from Pittsburgh. ‘We’re striking for a fair union contract, resolution of unfair labor practices, and a better future at Starbucks’ (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025e).

Widely called ‘historic,’ the strike represented the ‘longest and biggest’ bout of industrial action at Starbucks since the company’s foundation in 1971 (see Lazaro, Citation2026; Sainato, Citation2025c; Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025a). At the time, reporting linked the walkout to the successful unionization drive that began in December 2021, when workers at a Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, achieved a much-heralded organizing win. In 2022, New Labor Forum claimed that the Starbucks campaign ‘began in summer 2021’ with the Buffalo struggle (Logan, Citation2022). Other media accounts described the store as the ‘first’ to organize (Kang, Citation2022; Schoolov, Citation2022). ‘Buffalo Starbucks Store Votes to Become Company’s First Unionized Store in U.S.,’ summarized PBS. Predominantly young and female, the Elmwood Avenue workers set patterns for the campaign. ‘This is a monumental victory for us,’ declared Lexi Rizzo, a 23 ‑year-old Buffalo barista. ‘And the courage of all the partners standing here next to me … is incredible’ (Dinki, Citation2021). Outside observers repeated the focus. ‘The fight for union recognition began almost four years ago with the first Starbucks location’s unionization vote in 2021,’ wrote Senator Patty Murray, asking CEO Brian Niccol to recognize the union (Murray, Citation2025). In 2025, a Seattle Times ‘timeline of union activity’ at Starbucks began with Buffalo (Boyanton, Citation2025b).

To be sure, the New York breakthrough was significant. Inspired by its model of grassroots mobilization, Starbucks workers achieved numerous organizing victories, most through bottom-up action. By November 2025, the union had won over 650 elections, and lost about 120. ‘It was kind of a whirlwind,’ summarized barista Michelle Eisen, describing the victories (Sainato, Citation2025c). These gains, however, built on a longer history of labor struggle. They included prior organizing efforts by the AFL-CIO, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and the Industrial Workers of the World. Dating to the 1980s, Starbucks’ workers had long sought union representation, providing important building blocks (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025d).

This article reviews the long fight to organize Starbucks, locating it within broader trends in contemporary labor history. It argues that this important story was not just new; rather, it illustrated wider themes, especially the way that declining labor conditions since the 1980s produced a strong desire for unionization, especially in the retail and service sectors, where wages were low and benefits weak. In this era, the Service Employees International Union – with which SBWU was affiliated – grew dramatically, from 600,000 members in 1980 to over 2 million by the early 2020s. Other white-collar unions, such as the UFCW and AFSCME, also surged (see, Minchin, Citation2020; Ryan, Citation2012; SEIU, Citation1991, Citation2026; Working U.S.A. Interview, Citation1997).

This desire for union representation met fierce opposition, led by a business community versed in union avoidance. As such, Starbucks epitomized the wider rise in corporate resistance to unionization, a feature of the post-1970 era, which witnessed sharp declines in union density. In the mid-1950s, 35 percent of American workers belonged to unions but this fell to 12 percent in 2006. By 2019, the figure was 10.3 percent, while in the private sector – where baristas toiled – it was just 6.2 percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Citation2020; Greenhouse, Citation2007c). Along with rising employer opposition, deindustrialization and deregulation were major causes (see Bluestone & Harrison, Citation1982; Cornell, Citation2022, p. 49–65; Cowie, Citation2010; Cowie & Heathcott, Citation2003; Norwood, Citation2002; Silvia, Citation2023, pp. 1–13; Stein, Citation2010). The campaign revealed endemic patterns of labor mobilization and the difficulties of translating this energy into lasting institutional gains. By the time of Buffalo, these long-term problems were acute. In 2022 it took an average of fifteen months for a union to secure a first contract, and a third of victorious unions were unable to get a contract in the first three years. In this sense, the Starbucks story epitomized wider trends. When workers struck, there were no active negotiations between the two sides (Combs, Citation2022).

The company’s behaviour reflected endemic problems in U.S. labor law, as the 1935 National Labor Relations Act could not force companies to negotiate. Instead, it required them to bargain in ‘good faith,’ meaning that there were no penalties for dragging out talks for years. From the 1970s on, as unions weakened, this became common. Unions had long sought labor law reform to increase penalties for violators. In 1978, 1994, and 2007, major reform efforts fell short, largely because of corporate lobbying, especially in the South, where union density was lowest. In 2025, the reform push continued, confronting familiar roadblocks (AFL-CIO [AFL-CIO], Citation1978, Citation1994; Isidore, Citation2025; T. Donahue interview with author, 16 July 2013).Footnote1

Detailed scholarly explorations of the Starbucks drive are much needed. An analysis of the long campaign – not just its post-Buffalo phase – is important, so that the 2025–26 strike is placed within a fuller narrative of labor struggle (see Canella, Citation2023; Draut, Citation2018, pp. 69–70, 170; Greenhouse, Citation2009, p. 283; Citation2019, pp. 327, 378; Heller, Citation2024; Kallas, Citation2026; Rolf, Citation2016, p. 232; Uchitelle, Citation2007). There is broader scholarship on the rise of service and public sector unionism, with these growth-minded unions portrayed as models for the embattled labor movement. In The Unfinished Struggle: Turning Points in American Labor, 1877-Present, Steve Babson (Citation1999) praised the SEIU’s ‘innovative and combative tactics,’ calling its Justice for Janitors’ campaign of the 1980s and 1990s the ‘exemplar’ of new labor strategies, reaching out to women and low-paid workers in a way baristas built on. In a similar vein, Robert H. Zieger’s American Workers, American Unions (Citation1994) and Elizabeth Faue’s Rethinking the American Labor Movement (Citation2017) argued that ‘dynamic’ unions such as the SEIU and AFSCME offered ‘hope’ for labor, stressing their organizing innovation and use of ‘imaginative campaigns’ (Babson, Citation1999, p. 208, first two quotations; p. 151, 206; Faue, Citation2017, 208, final quotation; pp. 151, 206; Zieger, Citation1994, p. 204, third and fourth quotations).

Despite this praise, the Starbucks campaign remains largely overlooked. As historian Derek Seidman put it, this was a ‘critical union drive,’ especially as Starbucks was a ‘flagship’ global company. ‘To unionize a massive corporation, a mega-chain like Starbucks, would be a significant victory for the labor movement,’ he declared in 2025 (Jackson, Citation2025). The post-2021 Starbucks gains have featured in activist-focused scholarship, advancing grassroots mobilization ideas and what Eric Blanc in We Are the Union (Citation2025) has called ‘worker-to-worker organizing,’ but these accounts are present-focused, designed to guide organizers and other actors working for sustained labor revival. As Blanc puts it, the goal of his work is to provide a ‘roadmap for workers to win at scale in a society dominated by sprawling corporations’ (see Blanc, Citation2025, quotation on p. xv, pp. 117–149; Brisack, Citation2025; Kamper, Citation2025; Kelly, Citation2022; McAlevey, Citation2020; Nolan, Citation2024).

In particular, the Starbucks’ fight highlights the importance of organizing service sector workers, the bulk of the U.S. labor force since the 1960s. As manufacturing – the heartland of the union movement – declined, the burgeoning service sector became dominant. As Luis L.M. Aguiar and Joseph A. McCartin’s Purple Power: The History and Global Impact of SEIU (Citation2023) highlights, the SEIU forged the way in recruiting these workers, in the U.S. and beyond. However, much remains to be learned about the Starbucks battle. This was partly because baristas organized mainly through smaller unions, with the SBWU only affiliating with SEIU in 2022. The focus on post-pandemic wins – rather than lesser-known precedents – has also restricted scholarship (Aguiar & McCartin, Citation2023, especially, p. 18).

Drawing on media coverage and primary sources, including SBWU online records and case documents, this article traces the story of the Starbucks struggle from its 1980s roots through to fruition in the 2020s. Much of the fight was conducted through the NLRB – itself a traditional approach – but there was also a history of direct action and grassroots organizing (see “Starbucks Corporation and United Food and Commercial Workers”, Citation2025). To provide primary voices, I also utilize two participant accounts – former barista Jaz Brisack’s Get on the Job and Organize: Standing Up for a Better Workplace and a Better World (Citation2025) and CEO Howard Schultz’s Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup At A Time (Citation1997). Both provide detailed insights, from sharply contrasting perspectives (Brisack, Citation2025; Schultz & Yang, Citation1997).

These primary accounts unpack wider themes and advance our knowledge of the campaign, especially when read alongside one another. A ‘blow-by-blow’ narrative of how baristas organized, Brizack’s book provides rich insight into grassroots grievances and tactics (quotation by Sarah Schulman on cover of Brisack, Citation2025). In sharp contrast, Schultz’s biography details the union-free culture he built over three spells as CEO. According to Schultz, ‘partners’ did not need a union, a belief he promulgated for five decades (Sainato, Citation2025c). For Schultz, Starbucks was a company that ‘puts people first and profits last’ (Schultz & Yang, Citation1997, p. 137). The gap in perspectives is important, illustrating why workers were unable to achieve a contract. For decades, the two sides had been far apart.

Starbucks itself had a longer history. As an internal history documented, the firm’s story started in 1971, when it opened its first store on the ‘cobblestone streets’ of Seattle’s Pike Place Market district. Inspired by Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (Melville, Citation1851), the company’s name evoked the ‘seafaring tradition of the early coffee traders’ (Starbucks, Citation2025). In 1981, Schultz – a twenty-eight-year-old New Yorker – visited the store, becoming ‘captivated’ by the coffee. The following year, he joined the company, visiting Italy and acquiring ideas about the espresso culture that he brought to the U.S. By 1987, Starbucks had adopted its trademark green aprons – replacing the original brown ones – and embarked on an aggressive program of expansion. Schultz, whose first stint as CEO was from 1986 to 2000, oversaw an ambitious agenda that saw shops established from coast to coast, including in Chicago, Los Angeles, Vancouver, and Washington, D.C (Starbucks, Citation2025). Schultz, declared U.S.A. Today, was ‘the Bill Gates of coffee’ (Schultz & Yang, Citation1997, back cover).

Schultz transformed a business with artisan origins. The original founders – Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl – were young coffee aficionados. To start, they sold coffee beans provided by Peet’s, a gourmet California-based roaster. Later, they roasted their own. Not until 1982 did Starbucks sell brewed drinks. In 1984, at Schultz’s urging, the firm opened its first espresso bar. In 1987, Baldwin and Bowker (Siegl divested his shares in 1980) sold Starbucks to a group of investors led by Schultz for $3.8 million. It was a transformation for a company started by three Seattle transplants with little business experience or cash. The founders, however, grasped the potential for growth at a time when most Americans drank low-quality coffee out of a jar. Designer friend Terry Heckler created the store logo, a bare-breasted mermaid designed to evoke sea adventures and attract passers-by. Although the motif was subsequently altered, its main features remained. Schultz’s arrival brought a forceful presence to the laidback operation. An account in History Link – a Washington history encyclopedia – described Schultz as ‘tall, avid, assertive, and dressed for success’ (Farr, Citation2017).

Global expansion followed. In 1996, Starbucks opened its first store in Japan, followed by Europe (1998) and China (1999) (Starbucks, Citation2025). By 2025, the green mermaid logo was – as Workers United noted – ‘ubiquitous.’ With 40,000 stores, Starbucks occupied 80 million square feet of real estate across the world (Fox, Citation2025). Globally, the company employed about 360,000 workers, including 60,000 in China. The Guardian dubbed it a ‘coffee colossus.’ The U.S. remained its biggest market, and it was here that key labor policies were shaped (China Labor Watch, Citation2025; Kollewe, Citation2025; Sainato, Citation2025c, quotation).

Beginning in the 1980s, Schultz forged a non-union culture. Dubbing workers ‘partners,’ he pushed a package of ‘industry-leading’ benefits, including health care coverage and education support. ‘I’m not an anti-union person,’ Schultz declared. ‘I am pro-Starbucks, pro-partner, pro-Starbucks culture. We didn’t get here by having a union’ (Sainato, Citation2025c). The company’s promotion of progressivism helped its image, with its opposition to unionization shielded from public view. ‘Schultz built a reputation as a progressive corporate leader,’ claimed History Link author Sheila Farr, ‘advocating for higher minimum wages and health care, and eventually using the company’s clout to promote fair trade policies.’ Even laborites were won over; in 2012, when fast-food workers struck against low wages and job insecurity, organizers largely excluded Starbucks because they saw its working conditions as better. Schultz’s ruthlessness, however, was also apparent. ‘Enough is never enough,’ he asserted (Farr, Citation2017, quotation; Tapia & Lakhani, Citation2023, p. 123).

In Pour Your Heart Into It, Schultz stressed his benevolence to workers, using it to sidestep the union issue in a way that set lasting patterns. ‘From the beginning of my management of Starbucks,’ he wrote, ‘I wanted it to be the employer of choice, the company everybody wanted to work for.’ The ‘heart and soul’ of the company, baristas deserved good pay, along with ‘benefits that weren’t available elsewhere’ (Schultz & Yang, Citation1997, p. 125). In his account, Schultz stressed that he went against prevailing trends that employer generosity was ‘hopelessly out of fashion,’ portraying himself as a labor role model. ‘Treat people like family,’ he claimed, ‘and they will be loyal and give their all.’ For Schultz, Starbucks was inherently ‘personal and caring’ (Schultz & Yang, Citation1997, pp. 126, first quotation, 127, second and third quotation, 283, fourth quotation).

When it came to labor relations, Starbucks’ rhetoric was seductive. The company’s opposition to unionization was concealed behind progressive language, showing how managers saw no contradiction between quietly fighting organized labor while selling liberal values, including tolerance and respect. Managers claimed that baristas comprised ‘the heart of the Starbucks experience.’ The firm was ‘committed to making our partners proud and investing in their health, well-being and success and to creating a culture of belonging where everyone is welcome.’ In an internal corporate history, Starbucks stressed the ‘Pursuit of Doing Good,’ describing itself as ‘people positive’ and ‘resource positive.’ Overall, Starbucks sold itself as a ‘different kind of company,’ one based on a ‘feeling of connection’ (Starbucks, Citation2023, first five quotations; 2025, other quotations).

For workers on the ground, reality was very different, and gains came from labor activism more than corporate largesse. From the company’s earliest days – when it was largely restricted to Seattle – workers sought a better deal. In March 1985, some Starbucks workers in Seattle organized with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. About 120 baristas chartered Local 1001, securing a 1986 contract that included health care coverage, paid vacations, and sick leave for part-time employees. Schultz later reneged on this deal, part of what the Huff Post called the company’s ‘long history of fending off unions’ (Jamieson, Citation2019).

This did not stop Schultz from using the health care deal to win praise. Starbucks’ health insurance option for part-timers originated in this 1986 UFCW contract, a benefit Schultz opposed at the time. Subsequently, however, the CEO took credit for the move, using it to enhance his progressive image (Bitter, Citation2023). The UFCW succeeded in organizing the company’s Washington roastery and half a dozen stores, but Schultz hit back. ‘I was convinced that under my leadership, employees would come to realize that I would listen to their concerns,’ he wrote in Pour Your Heart Into It. ‘If they had faith in me and my motives, they wouldn’t need a union’ (Jamieson, Citation2019; Schultz & Yang, Citation1997).

Schultz’s opposition to unions went beyond listening. Following the UFCW’s contract wins, the CEO pushed to decertify Local 1001, ensuring that benefit gains were not replicated. After five years of trying, he succeeded in delisting the union in 1992. Prior to this, Schultz oversaw a program to reduce health benefits and remove union-led protections, particularly against unfair dismissal. ‘He told people if they got rid of the union … they would do better,’ recalled UFCW organizer Dave Schmitz. This set the pattern for unorganized workers receiving better wages and benefits than their union counterparts, a tactic the company later repeated (Jamieson, Citation2019).

Those close to Schultz stressed that his opposition to unions went beyond economic motives. ‘It’s a sore for him, I guarantee you,’ explained Willard Hay, a former senior vice-president, in a New York Times post-Buffalo analysis. Schultz was heavily invested in Starbucks’ reputation as a progressive employer. As such, he viewed workers’ push for unionization as personal criticism, if not rejection (Scheiber & Creswell, Citation2022). Illustrating this, Schultz frequently told the story of his father, who broke his foot at work and was fired from his job as a driver. Shaped by this, Schultz stressed that he had ‘built the kind of company that my father never got a chance to work for.’ He refused to accept that workers needed a union to protect them (Bitter, Citation2023). In his book, Schultz wrote that his father Fred’s premature death from lung cancer – after a life of battling through a ‘series of mind-numbing jobs’ – was a transformative moment, convincing Howard that ‘my major preoccupation at work was building trust with the employees of Starbucks’ (Schultz & Yang, Citation1997, first quotation, p. 46, second quotation, pp. 124–125). Schultz’s attitude connected with deeper patterns of paternalism among past business owners, who took pride in providing for their workers but jealously opposed any ‘outside’ interference. In this thinking, workers’ benefits had to be granted from above, not fought for from below (Flamming, Citation1992; McLaurin, Citation1971; Newby, Citation1989; Zieger, Citation1991, p. 35–59).

Schultz viewed the union’s defeat in Washington as a green light to expand the brand. ‘Once I had their full support,’ he wrote, ‘I knew I could count on them to work as a team to imbue them with the enthusiasm they would need to spread the word about Starbucks coffee around the world’ (Jamieson, Citation2019). As the company grew, however, the UFCW continued to organize. In Chicago, where the first stores opened in the late 1980s, the union recruited many workers but managers refused to sign a contract. ‘Starbucks Coffee has come to the windy city,’ claimed one union flyer, ‘but right now the best coffee in the world has a bitter taste for the employees who make it.’ In response, the UFCW staged a little-known boycott that was a precedent for the Red Cup Rebellion. Appeals to mobilize consumers and workers were remarkably similar. ‘Until the new owners negotiate fairly – please buy your coffee where its freshly and fairly brewed,’ implored the UFCW in a 1987 appeal (Jamieson, Citation2019).

There were other important precedents. In 2004–2005, the AFL-CIO oversaw an organizing campaign at Starbucks that was concentrated in New York City, but the company hit back hard. By 2007, the NLRB found that Starbucks had broken the law thirty times in fighting union activity, including discharging workers (see Finn, Citation2004; Greenhouse, Citation2007a, Citation2007b; Gross, Citation2007; Ramirez, Citation2005). A few years later, Starbucks’ employees used online petitioning through Coworker.org to win improvements in scheduling and paid parental leave, plus the right to have unusual hair colors. When Starbucks banned workers from having visible tattoos, barista Kristie Williams organized an online petition with 25,000 signatures. In response, Starbucks reversed the policy, selling its values of tolerance and cultural safety. These campaigns attracted diverse and LGBTQ+ workers to the firm, laying seeds for future gains (Greenhouse, Citation2019, pp. 326–327).

On the ground, grassroots-focused unions also found success. Between 2004 and 2017, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) led a sustained organizing effort at Starbucks. It was rarely mentioned in pandemic-focused accounts of the campaign, yet laid important groundwork. As a detailed examination in Organizing Work – an online mobilization platform – showed, the IWW campaign, initially focused on New York City but spreading well beyond, exposed workers’ desire for better pay and fairer scheduling. Starbucks fought back by forcing the IWW to organize multiple stores to stall bargaining, a tactic it repeated later (Driedger, Citation2021).

The IWW campaign built on its history of radicalism, especially a willingness to organize workers eschewed by mainstream unions. At the time, less than 2 percent of restaurant and food service workers were organized, and many observers had long viewed the barriers in this sector – especially small unit size and high turnover – as insurmountable (Tapia & Lakhani, Citation2023, p. 121). The IWW’s history helped show they were not. Founded in 1905, the IWW recruited tens of thousands of members regardless of background, at a time when the American labor movement was dominated by the skilled crafts. IWW members included lumber workers, dockers, and telephone switchboard operators. Organizers used wildcat strikes and even sabotage to win them rights – before harsh state-led repression at the end of World War I followed (see Cole, et al., Citation2017; Dubofsky, Citation1988; Renshaw, Citation1967). Between 1905 and 1920, according to the University of Washington’s IWW History Project, the group led over 400 labor actions. While the state crackdown hurt, IWW organizers remained active. As an analysis in The Nation put it, they ‘slowed but never stopped.’ When the opportunity came to organize Starbucks – at a time when manufacturing-led unions were haemorrhaging members from deindustrialization – the IWW took it. Forging a new front for labor in the retail sector, it paved the way for the post-Buffalo era (Harris, Citation2022).

The IWW faced many obstacles. Confronting a huge opponent, its Starbucks Workers Union (SWU) went public, seeking a minority presence across the company. The move divided workers, with many prioritizing grassroots organizing at strong locations. ‘It is almost inarguable that Starbucks would have almost immediately begun to find ways to pressure and/or discipline IWW friendly workers out of the shop,’ wrote one Portland member in an internal forum. The campaign also struggled for funding; in 2013, nine years after the effort began, the IWW drive budget was just $1,473. Other problems included high turnover among organizers, internal disagreements among leaders, and the company’s firing of worker activists. ‘Frequently,’ concluded writer Nick Driedger in one analysis, ‘entire stores were cleared out of SWU members by Starbucks’ head office’ (Driedger, Citation2021).

The dismissals illustrated the depth of Starbucks’ hostility. In response, the SWU filed multiple ULP charges, using them as an informal grievance procedure to engage workers and push back against corporate intransigence. In 2009, baristas at eight Minneapolis stores prevailed in a series of charges, the board finding that the company had evicted organizers from stores, told workers not to discuss the union, and retaliated against employees who organized. Months earlier, the SWU had won 30 similar charges in New York. Workers dug in, fighting for improvements in a weak economy. ‘Since the recession began,’ summarized barista Erik Forman, ‘Starbucks has been slashing benefits, laying off workers, reducing hours, and increasing the workload on Baristas … .As our standard of living comes under attack, the need for a union has never been greater’ (Agnos, Citation2009).

As working conditions deteriorated, baristas’ frustration grew. Expanding beyond New York City, SWU built a presence in twenty North American cities, including Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Portland, and Tampa. Its campaign pioneered a ‘solidarity unionism’ model that focused on three elements – securing media attention, avoiding legal questions of representation, and conducting direct action on the job. The IWW built support at the grassroots but eschewed NLRB elections, lacking the funding for lawyers when they took place. ‘It is crucial not to go down the certification road,’ warned one staffer. Instead, activists built power locally, often by filing ULPs. According to the IWW, the strategy secured concessions from the company to ‘calm worker outrage,’ including wage increases and positive changes to the tipping policy. Specific wins included $1 an hour pay raises across New York City, getting Starbucks to recognize Martin Luther King Day as a paid holiday, and scheduling and safety improvements. The drive also identified the importance of ‘salts’ – professional organizers who took in-store jobs. ‘There is no denying that the Starbucks Workers Union was effective,’ concluded Organizing Work (Driedger, Citation2021).

Above all, the IWW showed that organizing Starbucks, often seen as impossible due to the company’s size and workers’ vulnerability, was possible. As an account in The Nation put it, when the IWW hit the stores in 2004, the effort seemed ‘quixotic.’ It added, ‘Unionizing Starbucks baristas was like unionizing the Death Star stormtroopers; both impossible and pointless.’ From this perspective, the gains won were inspiring, laying vital foundations. In particular, the IWW highlighted the potential for smaller, worker-led bodies, rather than the big AFL-CIO unions, who had largely overlooked organizing, especially of service workers. Key activists imbibed the lessons (R. Bensinger interview with author, 13 October 2013; Harris, Citation2022, G. Shea interview with author, 16 July 2013; J. Sweeney interview with author, 15 July 2013; Uchitelle, Citation1995).

Schultz was integrally involved in coordinating the response. According to Huff Post, the IWW ‘wanted to prove it was possible to unionize workers in the all but union-free world of fast food.’ Schultz hit back, blocking efforts to call an election in New York City, where progress was considerable. ‘The very first response that we got from the company was a company-wide voicemail, which management transcribed and posted in stores,’ recalled worker Daniel Gross. ‘It was a message from Howard Schultz, telling us how disturbed and disappointed he was that this group of baristas at a store in New York had decided to form a union.’ As NLRB cases showed, the company also transferred ‘pro-Starbucks’ workers to stores that organized, screened new hires to see if they supported unions, and generally worked to crush the SWU. Simultaneously, the high-profile CEO massaged the company’s progressive image, winning positive headlines. ‘(Schultz) is very adept at selling himself as this benevolent patriarch,’ summarized Forman (Jamieson, Citation2019).

Highlighting the point, Schultz recruited powerful allies. In 1996, President Bill Clinton introduced an audience at Georgetown University to a ‘remarkable Seattle-based company’ that offered part-time workers health insurance (Bitter, Citation2023). Schultz, who appeared on a panel with Clinton to discuss corporate responsibility, explained his 1987 decision to offer stock options and healthcare, a rarity for hourly workers. ‘It was not going to be justifiable to us as a management team if a group of white-collar workers and a group of shareholders, private then and public today, won at the expense of our employees,’ he claimed to enthusiastic applause, eliding the role of union pressure. Schultz, proclaimed Business Insider, was the ‘gold standard for good bosses everywhere’ (Bitter, Citation2023). In Pour Your Heart Into It, Schultz’s account of the health care move ignored the union’s role, emphasizing corporate largesse. ‘Starbucks went the other direction,’ he wrote. ‘Instead of cutting health-care benefits, we found a way to increase ours’ (Schultz & Yang, Citation1997, p. 127). Later, Clinton invited Schultz to a ‘one-on-one meeting’ in the Oval Office to discuss the program. ‘I wish my dad could have been there,’ Schultz wrote proudly. ‘In a sense, he was’ (Schultz & Yang, Citation1997, p. 129–130).

The IWW established other models, particularly regarding direct action. In December 2006, New York Wobblies picketed Starbucks’ Park Avenue store during a corporate event. Union baristas and their supporters handed out Howard Schultz ‘Most Wanted’ flyers, targeting the high-profile CEO in a way that set patterns. Protesters also unfurled a ‘Stop Union-Busting’ banner inside the venue before company officials evicted them. There were similar protests elsewhere, especially in north-eastern cities, the core of the SWU and SBWU campaigns. On 17 November 2006, Boston Wobblies held a ‘Solidarity Night’ for Starbucks workers, while the Cambridge City Council passed a resolution condemning the company’s union busting. When the Red Cup Rebellion featured civil disobedience, it drew off the past (Starbucks CEO hides from Wobbly protesters [CEO], Citation2006).

Away from the positive headlines, Starbucks continued fighting unions. In the late 1990s, the Canadian Auto Workers organized twelve stores and a distribution centre. As an account by Liza Featherstone in Labour/Le Travail showed, the CAW effectively mobilized young baristas, who sought better wages and respect on the job. When the CAW won a contract, however, Starbucks undermined it (Featherstone, Citation1999; Scigliano, Citation2019). Still, the CAW showed the way forward. ‘Local 3000 is working overtime to overcome the generation gap that often turns these workers away from unions,’ wrote Featherstone, ‘and the perception – easily and often exploited by management – that they can only serve the interests of aging, well-paid, white men’ (Featherstone, Citation1999; Scigliano, Citation2019).

In other ways, the organizing drive that ignited in 2021 reflected the past. Key activist Jaz Brisack – who started as an Elmwood Avenue salt – was inspired by the UAW’s long campaign to organize Nissan’s factory in Canton, Mississippi, becoming involved while a student at the University of Mississippi (see, Atkins, Citation2014; Elk, Citation2017; Greenhouse, Citation2013; Minchin, Citation2018). As Get on the Job and Organize outlined, the UAW’s Nissan effort dated to 2003, when the plant opened. Although workers had many grievances, their drive confronted ‘rampant’ union busting from a company awarded $1.3 billion in state tax breaks. Brisack learned hard lessons about corporate intransigence (Brisack, Citation2025, quotation, p. 17; Chappell, Citation2013; Maynard, Citation2003; Pickering, Citation2013).

Still, by working with grassroots community groups – especially among African-Americans – the UAW built a powerful bottom-up movement. ‘Attending the Nissan workers’ committee meetings was inspiring and insightful,’ wrote Brisack (Citation2025, p. 26). The Nissan campaign ‘laid the foundation of future victories,’ highlighting the need for grassroots organizing and a ‘hammer’ to pressure managers to respect the union. Often college-educated and young, Starbucks activists were deeply aware of other past examples. Brisack cited a long history of ‘labor battles,’ seeing the Knights of Labor in the 1880s and struggles by early women garment workers as particularly inspiring. Recent battles built on this legacy. ‘The lessons of the Nissan campaign would emerge in future organizing campaigns,’ concluded Brisack, ‘lending strength and strategy to struggles to come’ (Brisack, Citation2025, ‘battles’ quotation, 35, other quotations, 36; pp. 18; McLaurin, Citation1978; Weir, Citation1996).

Institutionally, the SBWU was not as new as media accounts stressed. It was part of Workers United, a small and decentralized union that had emerged out of earlier textile workers’ struggles. It traced its lineage to the historic International Ladies Garment Workers Union, founded in 1900. The union described itself as representing ‘120 years of history,’ stressing the long-term fight for ‘worker rights and workplace safety’ it inherited. In 2009, Workers United affiliated with the SEIU, with SBWU later becoming an SEIU affiliate (H. Raynor interview with author, 18 June 2010; Workers United, Citation2026).

With activists drawing on this history, the Buffalo effort began. Brisack received training at the Inside Organizer School, a labor collective that was not affiliated with a specific union. The IOS had a bottom-up ‘mission,’ with a focus on training salts (Brisack, Citation2025, p. 41). Starting at Elmwood Avenue in December 2020 in order to ‘get on the job and organize,’ Brisack stressed that grassroots workers set the pace, with staffers struggling to ‘keep up’ (Brisack, Citation2025, pp. 61, 215). After initial NLRB victories, Workers United invited the SEIU to take over the campaign, a move that Brisack and Richard Bensinger – a key mentor who had led the AFL-CIO’s Organizing Institute – resented. ‘We didn’t want the national unions coming into the campaign,’ wrote Brisack, ‘but it was impossible to keep them out. And we did need more resources – which they never put toward the things that mattered.’ Under the SEIU, the campaign gained clout, yet there were internal tensions, especially about whether to seek a national contract or continue organizing store-by-store (AFL-CIO, Citation1991, R. Bensinger interview with author, 13 October 2013; pp. 319–320; Brisack, Citation2025, pp. 61–65, 216, quotations).

Post-Buffalo wins had deeper causes. Baristas stressed that conditions deteriorated after 2016, as the company cut staff, pegged wage increases, and increased benefit costs. ‘That’s really when we started to see the staffing levels slowly start to decline in these stores,’ recalled Michelle Eisen, a barista since 2010. There was further slippage during the pandemic, when Starbucks stayed open. Customers became abusive and demanding, placing staff under intense pressure. At the same time, wages stagnated and the cost of living shot up. For Eisen and her co-workers, unionization became a ‘no-brainer.’ Deeply opposed, top executives, including Schultz and president Rossann Williams, disagreed. Both visited Elmwood Avenue to pressure workers. ‘No partner has ever needed to have a representative seek to obtain things we all have as partners at Starbucks,’ claimed Schultz in a personalized letter. ‘And I am saddened and concerned to hear anyone thinks that is needed now.’ Despite what Eisen termed ‘an absolutely vicious union-busting campaign,’ the Buffalo workers voted 19–8 to organize (Greenhouse, Citation2022; Haddon, Citation2022; Hsu, Citation2022a; Sainato, Citation2025c, quotations).

In a detailed account, Brisack vividly recounted the last-minute offensive. Workers faced ‘corporate terrorism,’ including captive audience meetings led by Schultz where he talked about family poverty and his father. The CEO paced the room, seeking to persuade the Buffalo baristas of his corporate generosity and humble background. ‘If it’s this hard to win a union at Starbucks, how are we ever going to overthrow capitalism?’ pondered Brisack (Citation2025, pp. 144, 149, ‘capitalism’ quotation on 161).

The Buffalo group prevailed partly by drawing off the UFCW and IWW examples. ‘There had been previous attempts to unionize Starbucks,’ wrote Brisack. ‘In the 1980s, the UFCW had organized several of the first Starbucks cafes in Seattle.’ The IWW grassroots model was especially inspiring, providing lessons that successors imbibed. ‘They won the right for Starbucks workers to wear union pins, got the company to recognize Dr Martin Luther King Jr Day as a holiday, and pressured management to make some improvements and rescind other unjust policies,’ noted Brisack (Citation2025, pp. 66, first two quotations, 67, third quotation, 261).

After 2021, short-term economic changes assisted the campaign. For decades, Schultz had argued that Starbucks’ jobs were so good that workers did not need unions. In 2023, he claimed that average pay was $17.50 an hour, above state minimums, and stressed available stock options and health insurance. In response, baristas asserted that most did not work enough hours to enjoy these benefits, adding that federal law guaranteed their right to organize. During the pandemic, growing public support for unions – linked to cost of living pressures and reaction to decades of increasing income inequality – bolstered the effort (Krugman, Citation2021; McCarthy, Citation2022; Minchin, Citation2024). In August 2023, a national Gallup poll found that 71 percent of respondents approved of unions, the highest level since 1965. Gen Z, who comprised a significant part of the hospitality workforce, was the most supportive. From 1996 to 2022, the proportion of surveyed Americans who professed ‘very little trust’ in big business also jumped from 26 to 40 percent. Among young people, it was even higher. Eric Blanc called them ‘Generation Union’ (Bitter, Citation2023; Blanc, Citation2025, closing quotation, p. 260).

At Starbucks, the results of this labor upsurge soon became apparent. The Buffalo vote caught the mood, and by August 2022 Starbucks’ workers had won over 200 NLRB elections (Goldberg, Citation2022). Observers praised the speed and strength of the campaign, which embodied what the New York Times called ‘a new interest in unions’ (Blanc, Citation2025, p. 105; Jay, Citation2023; Leonhardt, Citation2023, quotation). In April 2022, Vice Media called the momentum of the Starbucks’ drive ‘unstoppable’ (Gurley, Citation2022). Other accounts called the wins ‘historic’ (Gurley, Citation2021), based on ‘high octane organizing’ (Combs, Citation2023; Logan, Citation2022, quotation). In 2025, CNN declared that the campaign was ‘one of the biggest successes in the American labor movement in the past few years’ (Isidore, Citation2025).

Technological changes helped workers achieve rapid gains. Most organized independently, often by sharing tips and manuals on shared apps, a burgeoning cultural force. Social media reduced Starbucks’ financial advantage, allowing workers to mobilize quickly and cheaply (Molla, Citation2022). In 2022, SEIU president Mary Kay Henry stressed the importance of the technology. ‘Their comfort and agility in using it has made the Starbucks campaign go faster than many things that we’ve seen recently,’ she admitted. Social media allowed local and national politicians to express support, and ensured that the campaign had national reach, even in right-to-work states. Workers at a Starbucks in Knoxville, Tennessee, the first to unionize in the South, credited online tips from northern baristas for their success. Armed with their phones, Starbucks workers turned small workplace size – long an impediment – to their advantage. Through online groups, an entire store could effectively organize in hours. Even Schultz could not keep up (Haddon, Citation2022).

At the same time, bottom-up personal contact remained key. In-person conversations – aided by the close-knit work culture of Starbucks’ stores – were essential, something media accounts often missed. ‘The most important lesson I can share is that real organizing happens through worker-to-worker relationships and conversation,’ wrote Sabina Aguirre, who helped unionize her store in Columbus, Ohio. ‘Looking a co-worker in the eye, sharing your own experiences, and listening to theirs builds the trust and solidarity that is essential for successful organizing.’ Aguirre stressed workers’ common ground; all faced the ‘same struggles,’ especially unpredictable scheduling, staff shortages, and corporate changes that increased workloads (Aguirre, Citation2025). By communicating personal experiences, workers built solidarity. ‘We actually have so much power to be gained if we take action together,’ commented another barista in SBWU testimony (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025d).

In the years preceding Buffalo, other social movements, particularly Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ+ equality fight, boosted efforts (see Duarte, Citation2020; Konadu & Gyamfi, Citation2021; Lemmey, Citation2020). While Starbucks endorsed these causes rhetorically, workers used them to fight for tangible workplace change, linking unionization to the need for respect and safety that these struggles spotlighted. ‘So many people who work at Starbucks were out on the streets for the Black Lives Matter uprising,’ summarized Buffalo barista Casey Moore. ‘I think so many people have seen collective action happening outside the workplace and are saying, “Hey, we can do that inside the workplace too”’ (DiMaggio & Bunay, Citation2022). Others spoke to the links with climate activism, which gathered pace in these years. Like baristas, climate protesters were predominantly young, female, and college-educated (see Fisher, Citation2024; Fisher & Renaghan, Citation2023; Lieberman & Gordon, Citation2022). ‘We grew up in this world that is literally on fire and there’s so many things that you can’t do anything about,’ explained 31-year old Sarah Pappin, who helped unionize a Seattle Starbucks. ‘For me this was the first time in my life that I felt there was something wrong and I could actually take steps that would right them’ (DiMaggio & Bunay, Citation2022).

The involvement of Gay and Trans workers in organizing – encouraged by Starbucks’ ‘people positive’ rhetoric – was a particular feature. Focused on the Pacific Northwest, a detailed account of the Starbucks’ drive in the New Yorker (2022) found that many grassroots leaders were Queer or Trans. These activists turned the company’s proclaimed progressivism back on itself. ‘They fucked up when they hired a bunch of gay people,’ one barista told reporter Kim (Citation2022). Disappointed with the rightward drift of American politics, especially during the Trump presidencies, many saw the labor movement as a practical way to resist. Complaining that Starbucks treated them as ‘coffee robots,’ these workers – many used to fighting for their rights – adopted the slogan, ‘Be Gay, Do Strikes,’ playing a central role in SBWU activities (Blanc, Citation2025, quotations, pp. 124–125; Kim, Citation2022).

The participation of these groups also reflected how Starbucks’ health plan covered gender-affirming care, a rarity in the industry. Attracted by this, activists demanded more. ‘As we saw at Starbucks, support for LGBTQ+ rights without union rights equals pinkwashing,’ wrote Brisack, who was Trans. ‘Oppressed groups cannot secure liberation without also winning economic liberation, and unionizing offers the only way to do that’ (Brisack, Citation2025, pp. 218, 267, quotations). In his 1997 book, Schultz portrayed the decision as reflecting corporate generosity, not worker pressure. ‘We had already decided to give benefits to same-sex domestic partners,’ he wrote, ‘not as a political stance but as a recognition of the wide variety of individuals who already worked at Starbucks’ (Schultz & Yang, Citation1997, p. 285). According to Schultz, the company ‘deliberately aimed for diversity,’ including at the top. He cited the 1994 hiring of human resources boss Sharon Elliott, a ‘high-powered African-American,’ as a proud moment. In 1996, Elliott oversaw the inclusion of diversity in Starbucks’ mission statement (Schultz & Yang, Citation1997, pp. 283–284). The key document spoke of diversity as an ‘essential component’ in the company’s operations. It was written, however, well before the LGBTQ+ and BLM movements unleashed increased expectations from below (Schultz & Yang, Citation1997, p. 139).

As union pressure mounted, Starbucks’ opposition remained consistent. After 2021, the company repeated earlier tactics, removing labor activists, closing union stores, and denying benefits to SBWU members (Blanc, Citation2025, pp. 129–130). In the process, it continued to earn the wrath of the NLRB, even during Trump’s second term, when the board was increasingly anti-labor. In 2025, an NLRB administrative law judge recommended a broad cease and desist order against Starbucks, finding it had ‘engaged in a scorched earth campaign and pattern of misconduct in response to union organizing at its stores across the United States.’ Despite ‘dozens’ of NLRB orders against it, Starbucks’ behaviour was ‘unabated’ (‘Starbucks Corporation and United Food and Commercial Workers’). By November 2025, the SBWU had filed over 1,000 ULPs against Starbucks, including 125 since January. Over 650 charges were unresolved. They included allegations of bad faith bargaining, ‘retaliatory firings and discipline,’ and unilateral policy changes (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025b).

In New York City, a key drive center, local agencies also documented resistance. In December 2025, Starbucks was ordered to pay $35 million to over 15,000 New York City baristas to resolve claims it had denied them stable hours and arbitrarily cut shifts. The settlement, with the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, provided significant cash payouts. In response, Starbucks blamed laws that were ‘challenging to manage.’ Capping a three-year investigation, the case revealed that most baristas had irregular and changing hours, putting their health care, education, and other commitments at risk. Nationwide, scheduling uncertainty was a central grievance (Citation2025).

NLRB records revealed that managers virulently fought unionization, a far cry from Starbucks’ public progressivism. In 2025, the Board found that managers had unfairly discharged union members and was involved in ‘interrogating employees about their union activities’ (“Starbucks Corporation and United Food and Commercial Workers”, Citation2025). In particular, the company was found guilty at stores in Madison, Wisconsin, and Austin, Texas. In March 2022, Madison baristas began organizing, filing for an election on April 26. The speed typified the campaign, marked by small group mobilization and use of social media. In response, the company discharged four key activists for minor policy violations, including allowing ‘off-duty partners’ into stores (“Starbucks Corporation and United Food and Commercial Workers”, Citation2025). The tactics were familiar. ‘Starbucks’ anti-union playbook was as old as the history of union busting,’ summarized Brisack (Citation2025, pp. 213–214).

Issued shortly before the strike, the NLRB’s cease-and-desist order was particularly damning. ‘All four discriminatees in this case were terminated without ever having been warned about similar behaviour,’ found judge Melissa M. Olivero (“Starbucks Corporation and United Food and Commercial Workers”, Citation2025). After an extensive investigation, Olivero concluded that the dismissed workers – Kendra Kindrai, Yanissa Rivera, Megan Jenson, and Alex Lammers – were ‘credible’ witnesses (“Starbucks Corporation and United Food and Commercial Workers”, Citation2025). She reinstated them with full back pay. Citing Starbucks’ ‘repeated and egregious violations of the Act,’ the board issued a broad remedial order (“Starbucks Corporation and United Food and Commercial Workers”, Citation2025). It banned interrogating employees about their union activities, and prohibited other ‘adverse action.’ The board dismissed the company’s claim that it was unaware of workers’ union sympathies (“Starbucks Corporation and United Food and Commercial Workers”, Citation2025). Starbucks, summarized NLRB General Counsel William B. Cowen, ‘harboured animus toward its employees’ union activity’ (“Starbucks Corporation and United Food and Commercial Workers”, Citation2025).

Other NLRB records illustrated Starbucks’ drive to bypass the union, precipitating the strike. In 2025, the union filed NLRB charges that management was ‘unilaterally changing the terms and conditions of work’ for baristas. Early in the year, the company introduced new policies, requiring baristas to write ‘personalized notes’ on cups, offer free refills of certain drinks, and run ‘condiment bars’ for customers. On the ground, the moves – often targeted at ‘represented stores’ – were unpopular because they were introduced without consultation and raised workloads (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025b).

Starbucks’ long fight against the SBWU attracted attention from reporters and scholars. For some, the case epitomized the difficulties of organizing in an era of declining union density, ineffective labor laws, and strident corporate opposition. ‘The coffee workers’ struggle illuminates the stark and sometimes insurmountable challenges confronted by ordinary American workers who try to exercise their right to organize,’ wrote Megan Stack in the New York Times. Overall, Starbucks was conducting a ‘dirty war against organized labor’ (Stack, Citation2023). In a 2025 Economic Policy Institute report, labor expert John Logan added that the number of charges facing Starbucks was ‘certainly the largest in the 90-year history of the NLRB.’ They included 771 open or settled ULPs, along with 135 NLRB complaints. At least 73 baristas had been reinstated through board action (Logan, Citation2025).

Symptomizing this war, contract negotiations moved slowly. In October 2022 – almost a year after Buffalo – talks began. As they did, Starbucks restricted several new benefits to non-union stores, arguing that unionized locations needed to bargain for them. In his third term as CEO, Schultz insisted that organized workers were disciplined for violating company policies, denying anti-unionism. ‘We treat our people fairly,’ he asserted. ‘We have done nothing that is nefarious.’ Laid out years before, Schultz’s view that baristas did not need a union held firm (Haddon, Citation2023).

Baristas maintained the pressure, using direct action in ways that presaged the Red Cup Rebellion. In the summer of 2022, they initiated several strikes, included at a unionized store in Boston where workers picketed 24/7 for over a month, through scorching temperatures. Strikers – in Boston and elsewhere – asked Starbucks to pledge that workers could organize ‘without fear of reprisal.’ The company refused (Nolan, Citation2022). In November 2022 and 2023, there were further demonstrations, including picketing and short strikes, to coincide with Red Cup Day (Canham-Clyne, Citation2025; Hirschfeld & Reuters, Citation2025). In 2024, the SBWU also filed ULP charges alleging that Starbucks had not bargained in good faith (Sainato, Citation2025a). Rather than negotiating, managers had adopted a ‘fixed position.’

In the year before the Red Cup Rebellion, labor-management relations deteriorated. In December 2024, more than 5,000 baristas conducted a targeted ‘Strike Before Christmas.’ In January, the SBWU followed up with 90 NLRB charges based around ‘union busting’ (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025f). Three months later, over 500 SBWU delegates rejected a Starbucks bargaining proposal because it ‘failed to improve’ wages and benefits or address ‘chronic understaffing’ (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025f). Simultaneously, the union continued to organize. On 5 June 2025, the SBWU won its 600th election (Ryan, Citation2025). On the eve of the Rebellion, the union claimed that its economic proposals would cost Starbucks less than a single day’s sales. With the company not budging, a strike was necessary to ‘address understaffing’ and raise take-home pay and benefits (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025f).

Frequent management changes exacerbated tensions. In 2022, Schultz stood down, replaced by Laxman Narasimhan, who was more conciliatory toward the union. In September 2024, however, Brian Niccol, who as Chipotle CEO had racked up numerous NLRB complaints and judgments, suddenly replaced Narasimhan. An elusive figure, Niccol stayed silent on the union question, using technology to drive harmful workplace changes. ‘Instead of listening to the partners – listening to those on the forefront, dealing with the business every day – they’re relying too much on leadership in their opinion, and AI, algorithms and numbers, to kind of show them how business works,’ commented Zarian Antonio Pouncy, a Las Vegas barista (Sainato, Citation2025c). In Truthout, historian Derek Seidman dug behind the changes, finding that Niccol also served on Walmart’s board of directors. Long-serving Starbucks executive Marissa May also sat on both boards, illuminating what Seidman termed the ‘Starbucks-Walmart Nexus.’ Walmart encouraged Starbucks to take a hard line, with executives viewing unions as ‘existential threats’ to management control. Both firms were active in the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which spearheaded well-funded anti-labor campaigns (Jackson, Citation2025; Seidman, Citation2025; see also Lichtenstein, Citation2009; Moreton, Citation2009).

Under Niccol, conditions deteriorated. Responding to slow sales, the CEO’s ‘Back to Starbucks’ plan brought in numerous changes, including offering ceramic mugs to customers. Hard-pressed baristas spoke out. ‘You’re just really working back-breaking work,’ summarized striker Rami Saied from Brooklyn. ‘It just leaves you without any dignity.’ Staff complained that new policies of refusing to give water and denying bathroom access to non-customers led to more public abuse. Lack of control of scheduling and poor pay also remained endemic. ‘We just want to be able to make a liveable wage, and to be treated like people,’ summarized New York barista Kaari Harsila (Kaye, Citation2025a). Now an SBWU leader, Eisen emphasized that workers struck to force Starbucks to offer ‘new proposals’ on the ‘outstanding issues.’ These were increased take-home pay – including a rise in base pay to $20 an hour – longer hours to address ‘chronic understaffing,’ and resolution of ‘hanging’ NLRB charges (Alvarez, Citation2025; Sassoon, Citation2026).

As the strike progressed, the union raised broader issues of wealth inequality and fairness. Its research highlighted that Niccol had received $96 million for just 120 days of work, while the average barista made just $15 an hour. The company had also spent over $240 million on ‘union busting’ lawyers and set aside $60 million for executive bonuses. The SBWU repeated its claim that a fair contract would cost less than one day of sales. In an America with record levels of wealth inequality – illustrated by the rise of centibillionaires, or people worth over $100 billion – these arguments resonated (Cornell, Citation2022, p. 49; Piketty, Citation2014; Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025c). ‘This isn’t just about coffee,’ argued the SBWU, ‘it’s about whether big corporations can crush an organizing wave or whether working people reclaim our power. These baristas are taking real risks and showing the country what hope looks like’ (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025c). The wider labor movement responded; in 2025, the AFL-CIO’s Executive Paywatch report found that Niccol earned 6,666 times more than the typical barista. This was the widest pay gap among the U.S.’s 500 largest public companies (Luhby, Citation2025). Furthermore, the union publicized that Niccol commuted to Seattle from Newport Beach, California, by jet, undermining claims of corporate responsibility. He also used the corporate plane for private use, with little oversight (Bharade, Citation2026; Sainato, Citation2025c).

Wider support was considerable. Using social media, the union encouraged citizens to join picketing and sympathy actions. The push began before the strike. By September 19, over 85 million people – representing 45 major organizations – had signed an online petition to Niccol, urging him to sign a fair contract. Signatories pledged to honor picket lines if a strike occurred (Jamieson, Citation2025).Footnote2 Just before the strike, a large group of lawmakers − 26 U.S. senators and 82 congressional representatives – demanded that Niccol ink a union deal (Sainato, Citation2025a). In November, Bernie Sanders – who earlier clashed with Schultz in a congressional hearing about worker rights – led a Senate committee effort that accused Starbucks of a ‘troubling return to union busting’ (Bernie Sanders, Citation2025; Blanc, Citation2025, pp. 129–130).

Pressure built. On November 14, business-minded Forbes warned that the walkout threatened a ‘major PR crisis for Starbucks despite its claim of minimal disruption.’ Two weeks later, it added that a ‘powerful coalition’ supported the strike, including progressive organizations and local and national politicians (Danziger, Citation2025c, first quotation; Danziger, Citation2025b, second quotation). Facing restructuring and growing competition, especially from Chinese chain Luckin Coffee, Starbucks should avoid ‘unwanted scrutiny,’ warned B.B.C. News (Kaye, Citation2025a).

As the walkout took hold, momentum built. In its first week, five new stores filed for union elections, including three in Baltimore. In SBWU files, the union cited support from seventeen House Representatives, as well as the House Labor Caucus, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, and Seattle Mayor-elect Katie Wilson. On November 12, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) also wrote Niccol imploring him to bargain (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025b). Murray’s letter spotlighted the wider difficulties of turning election wins – even a tide of them – into contracts. ‘I ask that Starbucks return to the table to negotiate in good faith, so that the workers at the 655 unionized stores, including 38 stores in Washington, can realize their first collective bargaining agreement,’ she implored (Murray, Citation2025).

Despite the pressure, Starbucks stood firm. On November 30, managers claimed ‘minimal disruption’ from the strike (Danziger, Citation2025b). Company spokesperson Jaci Anderson called 2025 the ‘strongest Red Cup Day in company history.’ Starbucks boasted that it offered ‘the best job in retail,’ including pay and benefits exceeding $30 an hour. Disputing these claims, the union showed that the average barista worked 19 hours a week, making them ineligible for benefits (Sainato, Citation2025a). Refusing to yield, Starbucks asserted that most of its 17,000 U.S. stores remained open. Three weeks in, Niccol refused to acknowledge the walkout, instead boasting to workers about a ‘record-setting start to the holidays’ (Boyanton, Citation2025b, quotation; Shah, Citation2025). Reflecting this, many constituencies privileged personal needs. ‘Can you still get a Peppermint Mocha?’ asked U.S.A. Today (Cross, Citation2025).

Determined workers hit back. In a December 17 account, Philadelphia barista Silvia Baldwin explained that understaffing and poor pay were acute problems. ‘All across the country,’ she wrote, ‘Starbucks baristas are struggling to make ends meet. Many rely on SNAP and Medicaid because they don’t receive enough hours to pay their bills or access benefits.’ Baldwin called Starbucks’ $30/hour assertion ‘PR nonsense,’ stressing that most baristas started at $15.25 and failed to receive enough hours needed to enjoy benefits. They sought wholesale change. ‘This movement is about who has power in our economy,’ she concluded. ‘Bajillion-dollar corporations like Starbucks don’t want democracy in the workplace, and they don’t want working people to have a voice’ (Baldwin, Citation2025).

Direct action kept up the pressure. Declaring that, ‘wherever Starbucks is, our picket lines will be there too,’ the union organized mass protests at the company’s largest East Coast distribution facility in York, Pennsylvania, picketers blocking the road outside. At Niccol’s California office, there was similar civil disobedience (Danziger, Citation2025b). In early December, Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani joined the picket lines in New York. ‘These are workers who are simply being asked to be treated with the respect that they deserve,’ declared Momdani. ‘We are standing with Starbucks workers,’ added Sanders, ‘and we’re going to create an economy that works for all.’ Both articulated the inequality and fairness angles (More Perfect Union, Citation2025).

The union also escalated the strike. On November 20, it expanded the walkout to a ‘new wave’ of baristas. By now, the ‘historic action’ covered 95 stores in 65 cities (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025b). New strikers stressed their commitment to a long fight. ‘We’re joining the unfair labor practice strike because we know that together we can build a better future at Starbucks,’ explained Sabrina Martinez from Arizona. ‘Instead of listening to us and investing in baristas, Starbucks is refusing to resolve ULPs or work together in good faith to finalize a contract that ensures the pay, hours, and staffing we need to succeed. Until they do, we’ll be on the picket line’ (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025b). Workers from twelve states joined, with the biggest concentration coming from New York. Claiming 11,000 members, the SBWU promised further expansion (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025b).

True to its word, on November 28 the SBWU further grew the strike, the ‘indefinite’ action stretching to 120 stores. ‘The escalation comes on Black Friday, the busiest time of the year for retailers,’ reported Reuters (Shah, Citation2025). On its website, the SBWU claimed that over 2,500 baristas were resisting ‘Starbucks’ historic union busting and failure to finalize a fair union contract.’ The mood was determined. ‘We’re joining the Red Cup Rebellion to fight for a better future at Starbucks that we all know is possible,’ explained Hailie Muro from Los Angeles. Other outlets joining the strike included those in Benton, Arkansas – the home of Walmart – Salt Lake City, and Seattle (Boyanton, Citation2025b; Starbucks Workers United, Citation2025a, quotations).

In the weeks that followed, expansion continued. On December 1, SBWU called the walkout the ‘longest unfair labor practice strike in Starbucks history.’ A consistent figurehead, Eisen stressed defiance. ‘It’s still shocking to me to wake up and have them fighting us the way that they’re fighting us,’ she declared. ‘Because we have proven time and time again that we’re not going anywhere’ (Boyanton, Citation2025b, first quotation; Sainato, Citation2025c, other quotations). Hitting back, the company claimed that the strike affected just 55 stores, and that some outlets had re-opened. For Starbucks, the SBWU was the roadblock. ‘When the union is ready to return to the bargaining table, we’re ready to talk,’ blasted Anderson (Cross, Citation2025).

After a few weeks, the strike assumed an attritional character that typified contract battles. On December 4, the union held a rally outside the Empire State building, the site of the ‘swanky’ three-floor Starbucks Reserve location, as well as the company’s regional headquarters. Protesters shouted ‘No contract, no coffee’ and ‘What’s disgusting? Union busting,’ part of a struggle SEIU president April Verrett called ‘a fight really for all of us.’ Despite this, contract talks remained stalled (Lucas & Rogers, Citation2025). On December 5, the union announced that twenty-six new stores were joining the action, but Starbucks downplayed the impact (Kidger, Citation2025).

In the following weeks, the stalemate solidified. Even when the union escalated the struggle internationally, Starbucks stood firm. On December 10, union members in England, Scotland, and eight other countries took part in sympathy protests for their U.S. colleagues. In the UK, rallies organized by Unite took place in Glasgow, London, and Norwich, while there were coordinated demonstrations at company facilities in Australia, Brazil, Turkey, and elsewhere. In response, Starbucks again claimed ‘no impact’ on business (Kaye, Citation2025b). On December 11, baristas walked off the job in thirty-four new U.S. cities. According to the SBWU, the walkout had spread to 180 stores across 130 cities, with almost 4,000 baristas participating. Reuters called it the ‘longest work stoppage in the coffee chain’s history’ (Mistry, Citation2025). On December 12, as the strike entered its fifth week, demonstrations occurred in seventeen U.S. cities and fourteen countries, including Canada, Indonesia, and the Netherlands. Workers at Starbucks’ largest store – the Chicago Reserve Roastery – also shutdown the facility (Danziger, Citation2025a). Seasoned observers saw familiar patterns. ‘I think they’ll get there,’ commented AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler. ‘But it’s going to take some time because these corporations are able to withstand this kind of effort’ (Isidore, Citation2025).

As Christmas approached, workers stressed the need for a deal. On 18 December – day 36 – baristas set up ‘Camp Contract’ outside the company’s Seattle headquarters, moving in with makeshift recreational equipment and plenty of determination. ‘We’re gonna be here around the clock picketing until they ready to meet with us,’ declared striker Leo Romans with typical defiance. The camp featured a 10-foot-tall ‘Big Bucks Coffee’ cup of Brian Niccol, whose devil-horned head protruded from the top. Despite the innovative effort, managers stood firm (Yip, Citation2025).

With Starbucks recalcitrant, the pressure eventually told. Although strikers received financial support from the SBWU, it fell short of regular wages. Just before Christmas, the SBWU issued a return to work notice, with 166 of the 215 stores on their target list going back. About 25 percent of strikers stayed out (Boyanton, Citation2025a). By mid-January, the strike had been downgraded to 1,000 baristas in 10 cities. The union emphasized that the battle continued, with new stores ready to mobilize (Vesperini, Citation2026). Participants repeated the message. As Indiana barista Sophie Lee summarized, the fight was ‘ongoing.’ ‘We want Starbucks to run well,’ she explained. ‘But the thing is, is that they need to listen to us, the people who are making the drinks and working there’ (Vesperini, Citation2026). On Tik Tok, where the SBWU had received over 23 million likes, it vowed that the struggle would continue ‘until’ the company respected labor laws (Starbucks Workers United, Citation2026).

In the months that followed, workers dug in. As the strike entered its third month, about 1,000 remained out. Calling for public support, they urged customers to delete Starbucks’ popular mobile app until it signed a contract. ‘We baristas are still fighting for a fair contract, and this fight is active and ongoing,’ summarized KC Ihekwaba from Colorado. ‘Our fire for change is still burning.’ In Minneapolis, seven stores struck for a January 23 day of action against ICE, highlighting ongoing links with progressive groups. Workers at the company’s Disneyland Store in Anaheim, California, stayed out over 80 days, crippling one of Starbucks’ busiest outlets. After this, the national strike became rotational, with small numbers walking out to keep pressure on management. Organizing also continued, and in April 2026, when workers at the original Pike Place store filed for a union election, things seemed to have come full circle (Brown, Citation2026; Sainato, Citation2026a, quotations; Sainato, Citation2026b).

Although workers often cited previous struggles, media reports still saw their strike – and organizing drive – as new. It was an emphasis reflected in NPR’s post-Buffalo observation that coffee houses were the ‘new ground zero for unions.’ To be sure, baristas had unionized at ‘record speed,’ but their contract struggle reflected longer continuities. Overall, several aspects were particularly noteworthy (Hsu, Citation2022b).

Firstly, Starbucks’ record of racking up NLRB violations was eerily familiar. It was a strategy pioneered by labor law violators in earlier decades, especially as management opposition to unionization increased from the 1960s on. Between 1963 and 1980, for example, textile giant J.P. Stevens – a massive manufacturing chain – responded to an organizing drive by the Textile Workers Union of America by openly violating labor laws, dismissing union supporters and constantly fighting the union. By 1975, J.P. Stevens had amassed what NLRB trial examiner Marvin Roth called ‘an extraordinary record of unfair labor practice litigation before this Board and the courts’ (J. P. Stevens & Co., Inc. and the Textile Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO [AFL], Citation1975). NLRB trial examiner Thomas Ricci added that Stevens had committed ‘massive and deliberate’ unfair labor practices in order to crush the union, underpinned by firing key activists and threatening to close shops if they organized. Decades later, these were central Starbucks tactics (Hodges, Citation1994; Ricci quotation on p. 58; pp. 53–64; Stevens & Co. v. NLRB, Citation1966; Minchin, Citation2005a). Baristas called their employer the ‘biggest labor law violator in modern history,’ the same accusation activists threw at Stevens in the 1970s (Baldwin, Citation2025; Minchin, Citation2005b).

Secondly, baristas’ protracted contract battle replicated historical patterns. At J.P. Stevens, although the union won a breakthrough election in North Carolina in August 1974, Stevens resisted signing a contract for six years. In October 1980, it did so after sustained protests and national boycotts by unions and the progressive community. Resolving the NLRB charges from the campaign took over twenty years (Minchin, Citation2005b, pp. 166–169). These problems were repeated during the post-2020 organizing wave, which delivered numerous election victories but few contracts. In this era, workers formed what CNBC termed ‘first-ever’ unions at many corporations, including Apple, Amazon, Google, Kickstarter, REI, and Trader Joe’s. In every case, however, contracts were elusive (Kang, Citation2022; Schoolov, Citation2022). By 2025, only 37 percent of new unions reached a preliminary deal within a year, while 48 percent penned one within eighteen months (Isidore, Citation2025).

Some cases were illustrative. By 2025, four Trader Joe’s stores had unionized but none had a contract, three years after the breakthrough victory. A founding member of Trader Joe’s United – an independent union widely praised for its militancy – compared bargaining with the company to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. According to the EPI, the key problems were weak labor laws and ‘ferocious’ corporate opposition. Workers could vote unions in, but getting signed agreements was another matter (Logan, Citation2025). Activist imbibed hard lessons. A seasoned fighter, even Brisack dubbed Starbucks ‘bad-faith’ bargaining ‘infuriating’ (Brisack, Citation2025, p. 221).

Despite big organizing wins, getting workers under contract was painfully slow. In April 2024, the United Auto Workers won a landmark election at Volkswagen’s huge plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the first time it had organized a foreign-owned automaker in the South after decades of trying. The New York Times called it a ‘labor milestone’ (Boudette, Citation2024, quotation; Eidelson, Citation2024). Despite the breakthrough, efforts to secure a contract stalled, the UAW accusing VW of bad faith negotiations, job cutting, and ‘unlawful intimidation.’ In October 2025, it won a strike authorization vote in Chattanooga, but it was not until February 2026 that it finally secured a contract (UAW, Citation2025; Walsworth, Citation2026). This was better than average. In April 2022, the grassroots Amazon Labor Union won a huge victory at the company’s warehouse in Staten Island, New York. Over 8,000 workers inspired hopes of change at the global giant, whose union avoidance tactics were similar to Starbucks. Three years later, however, after repeated legal battles and NLRB charges, the ALU – forced to join forces with the Teamsters to gain bargaining clout – still lacked a contract. As Supply Chain Brain noted, while the ‘hard-fought’ victory was significant, inking a labor agreement was ‘another matter entirely’ (Bowman, Citation2025, quotations; Sainato, Citation2023). At Starbucks, Amazon, and beyond, Labor Notes called for ‘cross-union solidarity’ and persistence as workers battled to gain contracts and resist an ‘anti-union offensive’ that was encouraged by the Trump administration (Brown & Uhlmann, Citation2025).

There were many other examples. In March 2022, workers at REI’s flagship store in SoHo, New York, chose overwhelmingly to unionize, while in February staff at Alamo Drafthouse in Austin voted in an IWW affiliate. Both wins inspired hope, but optimism soon dissipated. ‘Negotiating an initial contract can take years,’ warned The Nation, ‘and many campaigns burn out at this stage’ (Harris, Citation2022). By late 2025, workers at eleven REI stores had organized, yet the unions involved lacked a contract (REI Union [REI], Citation2025). At Alamo Drafthouse, workers struck for fifty-eight days in 2025 to protest job cuts and retaliatory firings. Their action saw seventy workers reinstated, but they still had no agreement (Quinnell, Citation2025).

Because of corporate resistance, union density also remained stubbornly low; figures counted workers under contract, not election wins. In 2023 and 2024, density nudged upwards in states without ‘Right-to-Work’ laws, yet stagnated or declined in ‘Right-to-Work’ states, highlighting how a hostile climate hurt efforts to build worker power. As a detailed EPI study found, in 2024 the twenty-four states without these laws saw an increase of nearly 10,000 union members, while the twenty-six ‘Right-to-Work’ states lost 200,000 members (Sainato, Citation2025b). Nationally, in 2024 the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that union density was 9.9 percent, little changed in a year – despite numerous organizing victories (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Citation2025). In 2025, 16 million Americans were covered by a union contract, 170,000 less than in the previous year. Wins were one thing, contracts another (Logan, Citation2025).

In the end, the long battle to organize Starbucks illustrated deeper realities about the attritional nature of contemporary U.S. labor history. For decades, American workers had confronted serious structural obstacles, including powerful corporate anti-unionism, weak labor laws, and extensive use of anti-union consultants (Jamieson, Citation2022; Logan, Citation2002). In these ways, the battle at Starbucks was representative. ‘When workers choose a union, they deserve a contract,’ commented Julie Su, President Biden’s acting labor secretary, during the Starbucks strike. ‘Too often, it takes a long time to get one because the employer uses delay as a weapon. The time to a first contract is used to punish workers for unionizing, to undermine the effort, or to send a message that there is no benefit to joining a union because nothing changes at work for years. Usually all of the above. This is unacceptable’ (Sainato, Citation2025c).

Despite numerous obstacles, the fight continued. Like generations before them, baristas found intrinsic value in their struggle. ‘Even if Starbucks Workers United never won a first contract,’ wrote Brisack, ‘it would still have profoundly impacted the labor movement.’ Since the 1980s, Starbucks’ workers had gained wage and benefit improvements – including health-care for part-timers – through labor activism. They helped achieve Starbucks’ coveted progressive image (Brisack, Citation2025, p. 273). The gains from activism continued during the strike; by 23 December 2025, 19 new stores had filed for NLRB elections, the union winning votes at 13 of them. Gains even came in the South, providing hope in a region with low union density. The company also responded to the strike by promising to invest $500 million in ‘green apron partner hours,’ pledging more training and better staffing levels (Benjamin, Citation2026; Kelly, Citation2025, quotation; Vesperini, Citation2026). SBWU activists called their salting program ‘Germinal,’ after the classic Emile Zola novel, which detailed a desperate revolt by French coalminers in the 1860s. ‘The work we are currently doing wouldn’t be possible without past efforts,’ explained Brisack, ‘and our current efforts have the potential to help pave the way for future liberation beyond our current comprehension of what is possible.’ Labor organizing – while difficult and frustrating – was never wasted. It was a lesson the Starbucks strike of 2025–26 aptly reinforced (Brisack, Citation2025, quotations; p. 276; Zola, Citation1885).

Abbreviations

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Bronwyn Hislop for editorial assistance with this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

1. All author interviews cited here were conducted with ethics approval from the author’s institution, for a project on the U.S. labor movement (approval number FHEC 1072–12). Further details are available from the author.

2. The company justified the use of the plane as necessary to ensure Niccols’ safety.

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