Workers at more than a dozen Chicago-area Starbucks went on strike on Christmas Eve, union organizers said, as baristas sparked a nationwide strike that began Friday in three cities, including Chicago.

Baristas in more than 300 cafes across the country went on strike, according to their union, Starbucks Workers United. The union had previously warned that the strike, which began last week with strikes in Chicago, Los Angeles and the coffee giant’s hometown of Seattle, could spread to hundreds of stores if the company did not meet the demands of baristas at the bargaining table. As of Monday, the strikes had closed nearly 60 U.S. stores, the union said.

In the Chicago area, workers at nine coffee shops walked out on strike Tuesday, joining workers at five cafes who had been on strike since Friday, organizers said.

The strikes came as the union said contract negotiations with the coffee giant had failed. Starbucks offered union baristas a pay package that included no immediate raises and a guaranteed increase of 1.5% per year going forward, which it said was enough for most baristas to make less than 50 cents an hour.

Starbucks has emphasized that the 1.5% increase guarantee is a floor on future increases, not a ceiling. Baristas earn an average of more than $18 an hour, according to the company.

The company last week accused the union of “prematurely” walking away from the negotiating table. “We stand ready to continue negotiations to reach agreements,” said company spokesman Jay Go-Guasch. “We need the union to come back to the table.”

Unionized Starbucks cafes make up about 5% of the company’s more than 10,000 company-owned U.S. stores. In a statement posted on the company’s website on Monday, Starbucks Executive Vice President Sara Kelly said that the “overwhelming majority” of Starbucks stores were still open and that the company would continue to operate even during the planned escalation on Tuesday Expects “very limited impact” on its operations Baristas have said this should be the last day of the strike. Kelly also said some stores that closed over the weekend have reopened.

On Friday, employees of the company at 5964 N. Ridge Ave. went on strike. in Edgewater, where baristas were among the first in Chicago to unionize more than two years ago. Baristas at 2101 W. Armitage Ave. in Bucktown and at 4553-4557 N. Lincoln Ave. in Lincoln Square also went out of business Friday, and outside the city, baristas went on strike at a cafe each in Evanston and Des Plaines.

They were joined on Christmas Eve by workers at cafes at 6350 N. Broadway Ave., 6075 N. Lincoln Ave., 1601 W. Irving Park Rd., 1000 W. Diversey Pkwy. and 116 S. Halsted in the city, as well as one store each in Glenview, Elgin and Carpentersville and another store in Evanston, organizers said. Organizers said a handful of Illinois stores outside the Chicago area also went on strike.

Of the striking Chicago-area stores, all but the Elgin and Greektown locations were either closed or not accepting online orders through the Starbucks app as of Tuesday morning.

The first Starbucks baristas to unionize did so in December 2021 at a cafe in Buffalo, New York. Since then, baristas at more than 530 coffee shops in more than 40 states and Washington, DC have also voted for union representation. However, the union and the company have yet to reach an initial collective bargaining agreement – one that sets out agreements on wages, benefits and working conditions for union baristas.

Starbucks initially resisted the union initiative, but in February both sides said they had agreed on a “basic framework” to jointly enter into an initial contract and resolve ongoing legal disputes between the union and the company.

The nationwide strike escalated as union organizers accused the company of reneging on that agreement.

“The company has met us halfway on many non-economic issues,” Teddy Hoffman, an Edgewater-based barista union bargaining representative, said from the picket line last week. “It becomes all the clearer with their reaction to our economic stimulus package that it’s not that they can’t do it, but that they just don’t want to.”

Originally published: December 24, 2024 at 9:38am CST