The “Red Cup Rebellion” is coming on November 16.
Starbucks workers will strike at stores across the US the company’s promotional Red Cup Day– its highest single sales day of the year–in their latest attempt to pressure the company to bargain a first union contract with unionized stores and address issues such as understaffing.
For those not in the know, on Red Cup Day, Starbucks customers get a free limited edition reusable red cup as a promotional event to kick off the holiday season. While the customers look forward to it the staff does not. They think they work too hard on that day–and from their complaints–on every other day as well. .
Workers are calling on the company to turn off mobile ordering on high-volume promotion days, improve staffing and scheduling issues, and bargain with the union.
“I feel like customers don’t know to the full extent how hard the promotional days can be. It’s super exciting and fun for our customers to have these new cups, new drinks and all these exclusive things, but our management does not staff us correctly,” said Bruce Halstead, a barista at a Starbucks roastery in Seattle, Washington.
“Partners will run themselves ragged having to do the job of three people sometimes because the demand of customers is a lot more. Partners will leave their shifts in tears, they will injure themselves just trying to keep up with the demand of the cups and the drinks. We just want to bring awareness to this.”
Halstead got involved with the union organizing committee at his store shortly after starting his employment at the company in February 2023 and has been impressed with its ability to change management policies.
“It’s so empowering to be able to take matters and actions into our own hands. At the roastery, we’ve had many successful walkouts and strikes to the point where our managers have to listen and they will start doing what we are demanding of them,” said Halstead. “Nobody should have to go into their shift dreading if they are going to be cussed out by a customer today because the wait times are too long because we’re too understaffed to keep up with the volume.”
Among the complaints include a consolidated complaint that Starbucks has failed or refused to bargain with 242 bargaining units, with an administrative law judge hearing on that case currently in progress, and a recent ruling by a federal judge that Starbucks violated labor law by withholding benefits and pay increases from unionized workers.
Starbucks again offered pay increases and benefits to only non-union stores shortly after the ruling following its annual earnings call in which the company reported record revenues in the past year.
Starbucks Workers United has characterized Starbucks as “the worst offender of federal labor law in modern US history” and has extended organizing solidarity efforts to college campuses.
A spokesperson for Starbucks disputed claims of delaying bargaining a contract, accusing the union of delaying negotiations.
“We remain committed to working with all partners, side-by-side, to elevate the everyday, and it is clear that Workers United’s priorities don’t include the shared success of our partners. Despite escalating rhetoric and recurring rallies, Workers United hasn’t agreed to meet for contract bargaining in more than four months and has yet to deliver on any campaign promise made,” said Starbucks. “As we join together to celebrate the joy of the holiday season, we call on Workers United to come to the bargaining table and do the work of negotiating a first contract on behalf of the partners they represent.”
If User Comments on public forums are of any value in reading public sentiment on the issue, then the workers are doomed to be disappointed as most of the opinions offer no support to the Starbucks staff and no sympathy to the coffee chain in general
Another opines that:
