![](https://gazetinternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/9-26-1024x683.jpeg)
The strike comes amid a squabble between Starbucks and Starbucks Workers United, which began organizing employees at the firm in 2021.
The two parties are at odds over salary, timing, and other matters.
The work stoppage on November 16th is expected to affect approximately 200 shops.
One of the union’s organizers, barista Michelle Eisen, said the firm could afford to “do better by its workers.”
This is the second protest to coincide with Starbucks’ ‘Red Cup’ day, on which the corporation distributes reusable, holiday-themed cups.
The walkout is scheduled to take only a few hours in certain locations, while it is likely to close the store for the majority of the day in others.
The union stated that the strike was intended to draw attention to Starbucks’ failure to negotiate fair contracts with unionized locations.
Members are also protesting working conditions, such as insufficient personnel on promotional days.
Ms Eisen predicted that more customers and community activists will join the protest this year, a warning sign for the coffee company.
“That’s what’s going to set this apart,” she explained to the BBC. “That is what should frighten the corporation. Their name is everything.”
Starbucks, which has around 10,000 locations in the United States, stated that it does not anticipate significant interruption.
It claimed to have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on improved wages, training, and new equipment, and it blamed the union for the delays in negotiations, citing successful agreements at numerous Canadian stores.
“Starbucks remains ready to progress in-person negotiations with unions certified to represent partners,” the company said in a statement.
Since 2021, over 350 of the company’s roughly 10,000 US locations have chosen to join the union.
Starbucks has been outspoken in its opposition to the initiative.
According to union members, it has dragged its feet at the negotiation table and gone so far as to terminate employees and close stores in an effort to put an end to the movement.
Administrative law judges in the United States determined that the corporation had regularly violated labor regulations.
Starbucks has denied misconduct and has normally appealed the rulings.
Former CEO Howard Schultz was obliged to appear before Congress last year to answer for the union’s charges.
Starbucks’ union effort has been extensively followed, and it is credited with helping to galvanize workers at other corporations.
Ms Eisen, who was involved in the first Starbucks location to unionize, described it as “bittersweet” to see other unions win large wage increases at corporations such as UPS.
“It feels like this campaign really lit a fire under the labor movement in this country and we are still sitting here fighting super hard,” she went on to say.