Starbucks union strikes stores in Pittsburgh area on Red Cup Day

Starbucks union organizers said Thursday they’ve shut down five stores across Southwestern Pennsylvania in the first day of what they’re calling an “open ended” strike over stalled contract talks.

Thursday isn’t just any day in Starbucks-land. It’s Red Cup Day, a key sales day for the Seattle-based coffeehouse chain where customers can get a free, reusable red cup with certain purchases.

It’s a pain point that Starbucks Workers United, formed in 2021, has tried to exploit before with limited strikes in 2022 and 2023. The following year, the sides announced they reached a “foundational framework” for a collective bargaining agreement.

But with little progress made since then, the union is protesting once again with demands for higher wages, better benefits and adequate staffing. The strikes in Southwestern Pennsylvania are part of a nationwide strike including 65 stories in more than 40 cities.

“Starbucks keeps dragging its feet,” said Kye Neilsen, a barista picketing outside of the company’s store near West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield neighborhood. “Just come back to the table with us and bargain for a fair contract.”

Starbucks said the union spoiled negotiations in April by pushing forward with an “incomplete framework” for single-store contracts that undermined ongoing talks for a deal covering all stores.

Cas Borowitz, a former barista and Pittsburgh-based Workers United organizer, said the union will stage near-daily protests in and around the city until Starbucks restarts bargaining.

The exact stores will rotate, she said, and more unionized locations may soon join the fold.

“We’re going to be out here however long it takes,” Borowitz said.

One of the stores in Bloomfield was chosen Thursday as well as three in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood, another in the city’s East Liberty section and one at South Hills Village shopping center.

Of those six, Starbucks sent managers to open the cafe at the University of Pittsburgh’s Amos Hall, but all other stores selected for pickets were closed as of about 10 a.m., according to Borowitz.

Jaci Anderson, a Starbucks spokeswoman, said the company is experiencing “very minimal disruption” as a result of the strike, with less than 1% of its roughly 17,000 cafes across the country seeing protests.