Starbucks employees walk out during busy ‘Red Cup Day’ event

Starbucks workers at multiple stores around the U.S. walked off the job on Thursday, demanding better working conditions and scheduling. 

Starbucks Workers United, the group that’s behind the unionizing effort, called for a walkout during the company’s Red Cup Day event, typically one of the busiest days of the year for the coffee giant. Customers who order holiday drinks receive a reusable red cup.

Workers United told FOX Business that it expects upward of 5,000 employees from 200 stores to take part in the strike, which has been dubbed “Red Cup Rebellion.” The group claims it is the largest Starbucks strike in history. 

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A Starbucks store in New York City is seen on Starbucks’ Red Cup Day on Thursday. (FOX Business / Fox News)

Starbucks, which reiterated its intention to work with Workers United to negotiate union contracts, said the strike has had little impact on its operations. 

A spokesperson for the Seattle-based coffee giant told FOX Business that it has more than 10,000 stores open and that there are only a “few dozen stores with some partners on strike.” Over half of the impacted stores are still open for operations, the spokesperson added. 

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This marks the group’s latest effort amid a two-year battle to try and unionize the company’s stores, which Starbucks opposes. 

Its list of demands includes stronger workplace protections, better wages, guaranteed hours, consistent schedules and improved health care coverage. 

Starbucks employee Charlie Grandos leads a rally as part of a collective action over Pride decor outside a Starbucks location in Seattle on June 23. (Matt Mills McKnight / Reuters Photos)

“This year, on the heels of victories won by striking workers across different industries nationwide, Starbucks workers are taking the rebellion to the next level,” the group wrote online.  

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In 2021, workers at a store in Buffalo, New York, were the first in company history to unionize. Since then, about 9,000 workers from 360 company-operated Starbucks stores have voted to unionize, but none have been able to reach a labor agreement with Starbucks.  

The group told FOX Business that the company hasn’t responded to a single proposal from workers in over a year.

Starbucks argues that “despite escalating rhetoric and recurring rallies demanding contracts, Workers United hasn’t agreed to meet to progress contract bargaining in more than five months,” a spokesperson told FOX Business.  

The company is calling on “Workers United to fulfill their obligations and engage in the work of negotiating first contracts on behalf of the partners they represent,” the spokesperson added. 

The spokesperson said the company reached union contracts this year for two stores in its North American business and claims that it “made significant progress on the draft contract with the Teamsters for a store in Pennsylvania.”