Complete Breakdown
For paid subscribers: analysis of the latest breakdown in contract negotiations between Starbucks and its union.
When Starbucks calls the wage demands of its frontline workers “unsustainable”, while giving its new CEO $113 million and paying out billions in dividends, it’s hard to take a generous view.
Although they reopened negotiations over a first union contract at the beginning of 2024, by the end of the year talks between Starbucks and its union had hit an impasse. On December 20, Starbucks Workers United staged a nationwide walkout that it named The Strike Before Christmas, citing what Reuters called “unresolved issues over wages, staffing and schedules”.
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