Why I support Starbucks Workers United strike: a reply to a post

Every so often I get a response to something I’ve written that I would normally out out hand dismiss. This is from a person I follow on Bluesky (and who follows me) in response to my post about boycotting Starbucks until the strike is over. I don’t want to “out” them, so I’m leaving off identifiers, but I believe the post is well-intended, if not necessarily well-informed. Over decades, I’ve found many people find strikes, boycotts, and other public displays of holding power to account to be more painful or self-defeating, when they don’t sound merely inconvenienced. 

Reply to my post on Bluesky about supporting Starbucks’ union strike

In this case, I believe the goodwill of the respondent is obvious in citing how at the “rate [I’m] going, there will be no Starbucks & no jobs at all.” This is hyperbole, of course, but it shows misunderstanding of several points that I’m addressing here. The poster continues with a doomsday end of “starvation bc real when there are no jobs” and again, I’m assuming goodwill because no one would write something like this without meaning to support people in the current times of crisis. However, I don’t know that this person like many others I know (still, to do this day!) don’t seem to understand why people strike, and what is at the heart of dysfunctional labor relations now more than ever.

I hope this provides some clarity. I’ll go point by point.

“I guess you haven’t noticed Starbucks location (sic) closing all over the country? If they lose money they close.”

Currently, Starbucks is closing hundreds of underperforming locations across the country and cutting 900 corporate jobs as part of CEO’s Brian Niccol’s restructuring strategy. The number of closures? Approximately 180 stores or around one percent of all locations in Canada and the U.S. 

Now, those 180 stores represent a large number of people who will be laid off. According to Starbucks, they will receive generous. Niccol’s says that “we’ve identified coffeehouses where we’re unable to create the physical environment our customers and partners expect, or where we don’t see a path to financial performance, and these locations will be closed.”

On the staff side, yes, Starbucks purports to have a generous benefits package and a cursory review on their corporate website will support that. However, talk to the employees at your local stores; you will find varying degrees of job satisfaction; but the most commonly heard is that the company demands near-absolute loyalty, corporate has walked-back hourly pay increases and the pressure to perform and meet goals is immense. This paints a different view of the benign corporation.

Starbucks as a corporation has not lost money, despite individual stores (perhaps) doing so. In many cases, it appears that stores closing are more of a cutting off of dead weight in corporate’s eyes, where sales goals aren’t met and the margins per store are too low for corporate to continue supporting. 

Niccol’s vision is to bring the company’s aesthetic back to a period of warmer, more inviting environments and in general, a “return to Starbucks” as it used to be. 

Additionally, not discussed is that coffee prices are rising and those increases will be passed along to the consumer; consumer confidence is also down across several data points, and dining out is one of them. More consumers are tightening their belts and we can conclude that these larger economic factors have played a part in corporate structuring and stores closing. Also, tariffs imposed on coffee producing countries are likely exacerbating price to market escalation.

Nevertheless, it’s telling that only around one percent of 18,000+ stores is what we’re considering. 

“How much should someone be paid to make a coffee & hand it to a customer?”

This is a disappointing comment and I’m not sure why they wrote this. Retail, restaurant work, and other public-facing service positions are far more than just sitting at a register, making small talk and handing off a coffee or other items. 

Your average retail worker is on a constant cycle of cleaning, inventorying, stocking, machine maintenance (in Starbucks’ case; those machines require cleaning and attention to ensure functioning), as well as the actual preparation and execution of making drinks or other food items if we’re talking about the food and beverage industry. There is also the abuse and stress that comes with facing the public every day and in many circumstances, the uncertainty if their salary will cover rent ad other necessities.

The average Starbucks barista earns $14.73 per hour according to Payscale.com. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 for years. Thirty-four states have raised theirs, but the remainder keep it at $7.25. A cursory look at fifteen major cities in the U.S. shows that even the proposed $15 per hour minimum wage increase at the federal level would be insufficient to afford a one-bedroom apartment. 

"How much should someone be paid to make a coffee and hand it to a customer?”, is a reductive and dehumanizing question. It devalues the reality of the person who is working to make ends meet, likely working more than one job, and doing the best they can to ensure that the customer doesn’t have a crappy day. 

There are other factors at work here that the poster may not be aware of or care to take into consideration. I’ll avoid the rhetorical question of why do people settle for these types of jobs or why don’t they look for something else/better, because it should be self-evident that what one person is going through, you cannot know. However, given the current economy, I suggest actually going on job boards and looking. Anecdotally, any given job seeker/applicannt may send out 200 resumes before securing an interview, let alone actually getting the job. Competition across the board is stiff in most sectors and retail and food service, two of the most maligned industries, are not exceptions.

Also, bear in mind that retail workers were mandated to work through the pandemic. Restaurants still provided delivery services at no small risk to employees. How much should people be paid for these services, even not doing a pandemic? More. Much more. At least, enough to not worry about whether they can afford to pay rent and live without income insecurity.

I also ask the poster to bear in mind that Starbucks’ CEO brought in 6,666 times what a rank and file barista makes for his salary in 2024. Let that sink in. Income disparity and wealth inequality dog us at every turn. 

To come to full circle regarding “at the rate you are going there will be no Starbucks & no jobs at all” is clearly hyperbole and false. Starbucks will continue. It s a mainstay of late-stage capitalism and all the exploitation that comes with it. Many American workers do cut back on meals because food prices cost too much and wages are stagnant. “Starvation bc real when there are no jobs” is also a bad-faith argument. There is starvation with jobs in this country and that’s through no fault of the labor base. Other developed countries have robust safety nets to meet the needs of the unemployed and deal competently with food insecurity. We do not.

No one should go hungry if they are employed; no one should starve because they are unemployed. 

For the record, Starbucks workers in non-union locations are supportive of Starbucks Workers United. They know that they’re a small minority who are working to change the corporate system and aim to hold it and its executive management  accountable. 

Conclusion

What striked me most about this comment was that I don’t think the person had actually read my post about why it’s important to support the strike. I respectfully suggest they visit it here but if not, here are the demands on the table:

“ 1. We demand better hours to improve staffing        in our stores. Understaffing is rampant, leading to longer wait times as customer orders stream in. Yet too many baristas still aren’t getting enough hours to pay the bills or meet the threshold for benefits.[emphasis mine.] Starbucks needs to invest in increasing our hours. 

2. We demand higher take-home pay, so we can pay our bills. Too many baristas struggle to get by, while executives make millions. Starbucks needs to put more money toward our take-home pay. 

3. We demand resolution for hundreds of outstanding unfair labor practice charges for union busting. The coffee giant has committed more labor violations than any other employer in modern history. Starbucks needs to fully resolve legal issues impacting benefits.”

(sbworkersunited.org)

Before retirement, I was a proud union member for almost twenty years. In the current economic and social climate, we need collective bargaining and unions more than ever. With a fraying social safety net, collective mutual aid is an increasing necessity.

Please support Starbucks Workers United.

Sources

Barrett, John. “Stuff2Do: Starbucks Edition”. Dimensionally Barrett. November 15, 2025.

DeVon, Cheyenne. “Here’s how much money you need to make an hour to comfortably afford rent in 15 major U.S. cities”. Make it. October 31, 2024.

Jamieson, Dave. “Starbucks CEO Tops List Of Sky-High Executive Pay Packages”. HuffPost. August 21, 2025. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/starbucks-ceo-worker-pay-ratios_n_68a7446ee4b05d94cb3787bb

Macrotrends. “Starbucks Gross Profit 2011-2025 | SBUX”. Undated. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SBUX/starbucks/gross-profit.

Payscale.com. “Average Barista Hourly Pay at Starbucks Corporation”. https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Barista/Hourly_Rate/8722e04f/Starbucks-Corporation.

Starbucks Workers United. https://sbworkersunited.org/.

Sutharsan, Shaki. “Some Starbucks workers in the U.S. are on strike. Here's why”. CBC News. November 14, 2025. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/starbucks-workers-us-strike-union-9.6978532