Starbucks Workers On Strike Now, So Go Fight Over Bear Mugs Someplace Else
Also buy your coffee somewhere else. Or make it at home, even!
It’s been a big month for Starbucks — there have been in-store brawls for the last two weeks due to people going full Tickle-Me-Elmo over some bear-shaped glass travel mugs, and today is “Red Cup Day,” a hallowed day during which customers can get a free, “limited edition” reusable red cup with their beverage. I assume it will also be the day upon which they release the holiday cups that conservatives will spend the next two months raging against for being insufficiently Christian.
Also, over 1000 of their workers at 65 stores went on strike today, due to the company’s refusal to come to the table on their contract — and it could soon escalate to over 12,000 unionized workers striking. There might have been even more, but the coffee giant decided to do some “restructuring” in September that involved closing over 400 stores, including 59 that were unionized.
This is not a new contract, mind you. This would be the first contract, ever. The Buffalo location that kicked everything off first unionized in 2021, after being inspired by the unionized workers at SPoT Coffee, a local franchise. By 2023, the company agreed to finalize the contract by the end of 2024 … which you can see has not happened. Though they did get rid of the CEO who made that promise, and replaced him with one who appears to think that if he just ignores the problem, it will go away.
This is the third “Red Cup Day” in a row that Starbucks workers have gone on strike, trying to get a damned contract in place.
The workers are not asking for much — just what most of us would qualify as a fair shake. They want stores that are sufficiently staffed so that customers don’t have to wait in super long lines, they want higher wages, and they want the company to stop purposely scheduling people at 19 hours a week or less in order to get away with not paying them benefits (which kick in at 20 hours). They would also like the ability to shut down mobile ordering if they have more than five orders in queue. People tend to go a little extra crazy with the adjustments and add-ons when they use the app rather than order in person, which makes things difficult when a store is busy.
That’s not much, and some of it also benefits customers, who will be more likely to come back if they’re not stuck in line for 20 minutes.
Starbucks insists that they already pay their workers fairly and have a good benefits package — which includes healthcare, college tuition, and up to 18 weeks of maternity leave. And you know what? That is a great benefits package! The benefits package is not the problem, the inability to work enough hours to qualify for it is the problem. Workers say it’s almost impossible to get that many hours, so for them, the benefits package is for decorative purposes only.
Starbucks’ Chief Partner Officer Sara Kelly says that the company is ready to talk and says she “believes we can move quickly to a reasonable deal,” which they have yet to come up with after three years. Surely she must have some “concepts of a plan” by now.
The unionized workers are asking people to boycott Starbucks while the strike is going on, which I would think would be manageable for everyone who cares about this kind of thing. They are also asking people to sign their “No Contract, No Coffee” pledge so that the company can see the support they have and the number of customers they may lose (fine, you don’t drink Starbucks — pretend for the sake of solidarity that you do!) if they fail to negotiate a fair contract.
In the meantime, if you are desperate to get a glass bear mug to drink coffee out of, there are many available for purchase on the internet (just don’t be the sucker who pays $500 for a Starbucks one on eBay). Or, I don’t know, stick a straw in a washed out bear-shaped honey bottle and call it a day. Just don’t cross a picket line!
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Mobile ordering is a fucking scourge. Going to Starbucks and just ordering something at the counter, you wait forever because they’re filling mobile orders and lining them up on the counter for people to just walk in and pick up and go. So much for the “coffee house” experience of going in, getting a coffee, and sitting down to enjoy it.
OT: You mean Donny Pedo LIED???
"I thought Trump said he had cut all ties with Epstein years before this?"
https://bsky.app/profile/ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3m5j6cpe3zc2l