An open-ended strike by Starbucks workers is growing as it continues into a fourth week.
The walkout began Nov. 13 at 65 Starbucks stores, spread to 30 more stores a week later, and to 25 more on Black Friday. Seven Starbucks stores in the Portland metro area are on strike, and two in Eugene.
“We aren’t going back until Starbucks quits stalling and comes back to the table,” said Star McQueen, a 35-year-old barista and strike picket captain at the Southeast 126th and Division Starbucks.
Since a Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York, unionized in 2021, workers have continued to join Starbucks Workers United. Today the union represents about 550 stores, totaling 6.5% of corporate-owned Starbucks locations in the United States. But bargaining over a first collective bargaining agreement started slowly and faced significant resistance from the coffee giant. Starbucks set a record from 2021 to 2024 as the employer with the most unfair labor practice complaints filed against them in the history of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
In February 2024 Starbucks agreed on a general framework for bargaining, and reached tentative agreement with the union on all non-economic articles of a first contract. The company also agreed to settle the majority of outstanding NLRB charges, returning workers who had been wrongfully fired for union organizing.
But in September 2024 the tone of negotiations chilled. Brian Niccol, the former CEO of fast-casual burrito chain Chipotle, took over as Starbucks CEO and the company stopped bargaining in any meaningful way, the union says. Starbucks proposed a 0% wage increase for the first year of the contract, and 1% for the second year. The two sides have not met since April 2025.
“We’re tired of waiting around,” said Michelle Eisen, a Starbucks Workers United spokesperson who worked at Starbucks for 15 years and helped organize the very first unionized Starbucks in Buffalo. “Anyone who works in retail knows that this is the highest volume time of year. Starbucks capitalizes on this period of sales through various holiday promotions, yet it’s the worst time to be a barista here. No matter how busy it gets, workers know that [corporate] isn’t going to offer them more staffing or higher pay if we don’t do something about it.”
While most of the struck stores in Portland have remained closed since the start of the strike, the company has continued operations at some locations as strikers show up to flier and picket.
On a cold Saturday morning Nov. 22, striking baristas gathered outside the 172nd Avenue store in Happy Valley with support from a contingent from the Clackamas Country chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Caroline Feig, a 27-year-old shift supervisor, said the store stayed open about half the time the previous week using scab labor from Starbucks managers and workers who had been laid off from a store that permanently closed in late September. The store manager calls strikers every day asking them to come back to work, Feig said, but none of the baristas had crossed the picket line as of Nov. 22 (a week later, one worker had crossed). Instead workers show up to picket in pairs from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., or at least until the store closes for the day and they’ve successfully turned away the delivery truck. Some Teamster-represented drivers are refusing to make deliveries where strikers are picketing.
“Some of the people working in the store have given us some ’tude,” Feig told the Labor Press. “Do you think I want to stand out here every single day in the cold? I’m just doing my part because this strike should benefit all of us.”
“It’s important to look at the big picture here,” said McQueen, the Southeast Division picket captain. “It would take less than one day’s worth of profit for the company to finalize our contract. It shouldn’t be hard for the company to come back to the table.”
Starbucks Workers United is asking customers to boycott Starbucks until they agree to a fair first contract. At nocontractnocoffee.org, supporters can sign a pledge to get their coffee elsewhere and find community picket lines to offer assistance.
