You may want to figure out how to whip up a Peppermint Mocha at home — this Christmas, your local Starbucks workers might be on strike.
At least 5,000 employees at more than 300 Starbucks locations throughout the U.S. plan to join the union’s planned work stoppage on Tuesday, capping the union’s five-day strike that began Dec. 20, Bloomberg reports.
Starbucks Workers United represents employees at more than 500 stores, and the Christmas Eve stoppages represent “a breakdown” in the union’s negotiations with company leadership for better wages and improved hours and schedules, according to Bloomberg. The company’s latest offer to the union didn’t include any immediate pay raises for its members, the union said in a statement.
Most of Starbucks' more than 10,000 storefronts remain open, the company said in a statement.
The strike has spread to 12 major U.S. cities, including New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Some city officials, including Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, joined workers on the picket line.
“Right now, I’m making $16.50 an hour. Meanwhile, [Starbucks CEO] Brian Niccol’s compensation package is worth $57,000 an hour,” Silvia Baldwin, a Philadelphia barista and bargaining delegate, said in a statement from the union. “The company just announced I’m only getting a 2.5% raise next year, $0.40 an hour, which is hardly anything.”
Starbucks said in a statement that its baristas earn average wages of $18 an hour, and baristas that work more than 20 hours per week earn an average of $30 an hour when benefits are included.
The union dubbed its five-day protest “the strike before Christmas” and aims to cut into the retailer’s holiday profits. In 2022, the company recorded a “record holiday season” with profits up 12% during the December quarter, Forbes reports. That’s compared to overall retail profits rising 8% over the same period.
