As Starbucks employees begin an indefinite nationwide strike, including at several locations in Colorado, Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet joined 24 of their colleagues in calling on the Seattle-based coffee company to end its “union-busting” efforts and participate in good-faith negotiations with its employees.
“It is clear that Starbucks has the money to reach a fair agreement with its workers,” the senators, both Democrats, said in a letter addressed to the company’s CEO, Brian Niccol, on Wednesday. “Starbucks must reverse course from its current posture, resolve its existing labor disputes, and bargain a fair contract in good faith with these employees.”
Hickenlooper has previously been critical of Starbucks’ handling of labor disputes. During a March 2023 Senate hearing, he pressed then-CEO Howard Schultz on the company’s inability to negotiate contracts with the union. Both Hickenlooper and Bennet have also been vocal critics of recent executive orders from Trump revoking federal workers’ collective bargaining rights. They introduced legislation to repeal the orders in September.
The strike comes amid stalled negotiations between the coffee giant and Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), the union organizing baristas. The union was on track to establish an agreement after the company vowed in December 2023 to finalize one by the end of 2024. Following the removal of the company’s previous CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, last August, the two sides have not met at the bargaining table since April, when union delegates overwhelmingly rejected Starbucks’ contract offer.
Under Niccol’s leadership, hundreds of locations have been shuttered in recent months, including 59 union stores, and new policies have been implemented in an effort to create a better in-store experience and improve service times. While the company announced last month that it had seen growth in same-store sales for the first time in two years, this was mainly driven by international sales, with U.S. figures remaining flat.
“If Starbucks keeps stonewalling a fair contract and refusing to end union-busting, they’ll see their business grind to a halt,” said Michelle Eisen, SBWU spokesperson and 15-year veteran barista, in a statement released by the union on Thursday. “No contract, no coffee is more than a tagline—it’s a pledge to interrupt Starbucks’ operations and profits until a fair union contract and an end to unfair labor practices are won.”
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The company, which currently employs more than 360,000 workers across 17,000 U.S. locations, has been embroiled in labor disputes since baristas began their push for unionization in 2021. Since then, roughly 550 locations have unionized, and the corporation has been found guilty of more than 400 labor law violations in the process, with 125 new allegations of union-busting since January of this year, according to SBWU.
Strategically timed to coincide with “Red Cup Day,” a yearly holiday Starbucks promotion that is typically one of the company’s busiest days of the year, the strike begins with 65 locations and over 1,000 employees joining picket lines nationwide. In both 2022 and 2023, workers took similar actions during the sales event, although those strikes were limited to a single day.
“With no set end date to the strike, baristas across more than 550 current union stores are prepared to continue escalating to make this the largest, longest strike in company history if Starbucks fails to deliver a fair union contract and resolve unfair labor practice charges,” the union stated in its Thursday release.
Baristas at the Carmela Grove location in Colorado Springs will be holding a rally Thursday evening, from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. at their store.
