Starbucks workers in the U.S. plan to stage a three-day strike starting Friday as part of their efforts to unionize the coffee chain.
More than 1,000 baristas at 100 stores are planning to leave, according to the Starbucks Workers United, which is organizing the effort. The strike will be the longest in the year-long union campaign.
The union expects the strike to close some stores outright; in other cases, managers or other employees can keep stores open.
A message seeking comments was left at Starbucks on Friday morning.
This is U.S. workers’ second large-scale strike at Starbucks in a month. On November 17, workers at 110 Starbucks stores staged a one-day strike. The effort coincides with Starbucks’ annual Red Cup Day, when the company gives away reusable cups to customers who order Christmas drinks.
Since the end of last year, more than 264 of Starbucks’ 9,000 company-owned U.S. stores have voted to unionize.
Starbucks has opposed the union’s efforts, saying the company works better when it works directly with employees. But the company said last month that it respected employees’ legal protest rights.
Tori Tambellini, a former Starbucks shift supervisor and union organizer who was fired in July, said she would be picketing in Pittsburgh this weekend. Tambellini said workers are protesting understaffed stores, poor management and what she calls Starbucks’ “scorched earth method of union busting,” including closing unionized stores.
The United Workers noted that Starbucks recently closed its first unionized store in Seattle, where the company is based. The store is closed for safety reasons, according to Starbucks.
This process is controversial. Workers’ unions have filed at least 446 unfair labor practice charges against Starbucks since late last year, including the company’s firing of union officials and refusal to negotiate, according to the National Labor Relations Board. Meanwhile, the company has filed 47 charges against the union, including allegations that it violated negotiation rules by recording meetings and posting the recordings online.
So far, the labor dispute isn’t affecting Starbucks’ sales.
Starbucks announced in November that its July-September sales rose 3% to a record $8.41 billion.
-AP
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