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Hundreds of stores closed! Starbucks union strike escalates!

Published: 2026-02-25 Author:

Last Updated: 2026/02/25, ▲ Click to pay attention| Daily Boutique Coffee Culture Magazine Coffee Workshop Recently, Reuters and other foreign media reported. Starbucks employees went on strike across the United States during the Christmas season amid dissatisfaction with delayed contract negotiations and unmet labor demands. The strike organized and initiated by the Starbucks union started from 1

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Recently, Reuters and other foreign media reported. Starbucks employees went on strike across the United States during the Christmas season, dissatisfied with delayed contract negotiations and unmet labor demands.

The strike, organized and launched by the Starbucks union, began on December 20, first in Seattle, Chicago and Los Angeles, and then extended to Denver and Pittsburgh on the 21st. On December 22nd, employees in New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis also joined the strike.

It is reported that Starbucks operates more than 10,000 stores in the United States. Although employees from many places took part in the five-day strike, Starbucks said 98 per cent of its stores in the US were still open and about 170 were closed as of Tuesday.

However, the unions that launched the strike gave different figures, claiming that more than 290 stores had been "completely closed" and that more than 300 stores in 45 states had gone on strike as planned. The Starbucks union expects Tuesday's Christmas Eve strike to be the largest strike in Starbucks's history.

The union, which represents employees in 525 stores across the US, said Starbucks had failed to deliver on its promise to develop a framework for collective bargaining this year and had failed to resolve allegations of unfair labour practices.

The union also accused Starbucks of lacking a substantial plan for wage growth in its recent economic proposal, promising only a 1.5% wage increase over the next three years, which is far from enough to combat inflation. Based on this, the union called for an overall wage increase of 77% in a three-year contract and an immediate 64% increase for hourly employees.

But Starbucks responded that the union's demands were "unsustainable," saying that over the past three years, Starbucks had invested more than $3 billion in partner experiences. and reiterated that the company offers competitive average wages and first-class benefits of more than $18 an hour.

Starbucks declined to comment on its estimated impact on the overall and operations of the growing strike, saying only that it expected the impact of the strike to be "very limited". But industry insiders are concerned that the strike could have a severe impact on sales during the Christmas shopping season. After all, during the Christmas holiday, consumers not only buy lattes and other coffee drinks to reward themselves, but also buy gift cards, perimeter restrictions, and so on, which is an important sales time of the year for Starbucks.

In addition, affected by this, Starbucks shares have fallen more than 5% in the past five trading days, and show a continuous downward trend.

At the same time, the strike also affected some ununionized Starbucks stores, which recently submitted applications to the National Labor Relations Board to seek to join the union stores. From this point of view, local employees' dissatisfaction with wages and working conditions continues to ferment.

As the scope of the strike continues to expand and its impact on the operation of Starbucks stores, attention has been paid to both parties to the incident. At present, the union says it is considering the next step, saying that baristas will return to work on Wednesday or Thursday and are ready to resume negotiations.

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