OAN Staff James Myers
8:47am – Friday, December 20, 2024
Starbucks employees plan to go on a five-day strike starting Friday to protest the lack of progress in contract negotiations with the company.
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The strike is scheduled to begin in Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle, and could spread to hundreds of stores nationwide by Christmas Eve.
Starbucks Workers United, the union that has been organizing workers at 535 of its U.S. stores since 2021, announced that the coffee chain has not kept its promise to sign a collective bargaining agreement in February.
The union also wants the company to resolve outstanding legal issues, including hundreds of unfair labor practice complaints filed by workers with the National Labor Relations Board.
The union said Brian Nicol, Starbucks' new chairman and CEO who took over in September, could earn more than $100 million in his first year on the job.
However, the company recently proposed an economic package that would not provide any new wage increases for unionized baristas for the time being, with future increases of 1.5%, the union said.
“Union baristas know their value and will not accept an offer that does not treat them as true partners,” said Workers United President Lynn Fox.
The company announced that Workers United prematurely ended this week's bargaining session. Starbucks has approximately 10,000 company-operated stores in the United States
“We are prepared to continue negotiating to reach an agreement. We need unions back to the table,” Starbucks said in a statement.
The Seattle-based coffee chain claims it already offers pay and benefits worth $30 an hour to baristas who work at least 20 hours a week, including free college tuition and paid family leave. I am doing it.
In November 2023, thousands of employees at more than 200 stores walked off the job on Red Cup Day, when the company typically gives away thousands of reusable cups.
Hundreds of workers went on strike in June 2023 in protest after the union announced that Starbucks would ban Pride displays in some stores.
Starbucks said it has held nine bargaining sessions with unions since April and reached more than 30 agreements with unions.
However, the two sides cannot seem to find a compromise.
Fatemeh Alhajaboudi, a Starbucks barista from Texas, said, “In a year in which Starbucks has invested millions of dollars in executive talent, Starbucks offers a viable economic proposition to the baristas who run the company.'' I haven't been able to do it,” he said.
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