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Members of Starbucks Workers United staged their first strike in 13 months on Friday and are planning an escalating walkout through Christmas Eve that would result in the union’s largest walkout since the coffee retailer’s organizing drive began three years ago.

The strike is scheduled to begin Friday in three cities – Starbucks’ hometown of Seattle, as well as Chicago and Los Angeles, which the union described as key markets for the company. It said the strike would spread to hundreds of stores coast to coast by Christmas Eve unless the company committed to a framework to achieve the company’s first union contract.

Starbucks Workers United won its first union election in Buffalo in December 2021 and has since been organizing store after store across the company’s network. It has won the right to represent nearly 12,000 workers in more than 500 businesses, according to the latest count from the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees private-sector representation elections. The union also lost votes in around 100 stores. But either way, that’s still just a fraction of the 11,200 company-operated stores in the United States, which employed about 201,000 people at the end of September.

Since its first strike at approximately 100 locations in November 2022, the union has conducted a series of strikes at select stores it represents. In the past, many of the striking stores remained open because the company replaced the union striking workers with managers and workers from nearby non-union stores.

However, with the company and union negotiating and reporting progress for much of this year, this is the first major strike called by the union since November 2023.

If the union has waged a strike against Starbucks, it has been for a specific period of time, rather than an indefinite strike like the recent strike at Boeing, the Big Three automakers or Hollywood studios, where union members remain on the picket line until an agreement is reached . Shorter, temporary strikes have become increasingly popular among U.S. unions in recent years, with occasional great success, such as the 2023 strike at health care giant Kaiser Permanente.

The union said it has been establishing a framework with Starbucks management since February to reach its first collective bargaining agreement and resolve outstanding legal grievances. However, it was said that the management did not honor this agreement.

“Nobody wants to strike. It is a last resort, but Starbucks has broken its promise to thousands of baristas and left us with no other choice,” Fatemeh Alhadjaboodi, a five-year Starbucks barista from Texas and collective bargaining delegate, said in a statement released by the union. “In a year in which Starbucks has invested so many millions in top executives, the company has failed to provide a viable economic proposition to the baristas who keep its business running. This is just the beginning. We will do everything we can to get the company to honor the commitment it made to us in February.”

The company insists it is committed to reaching an agreement and is ready to return to the negotiating table. It was said that the union was the one doing this broke off the negotiations.

“Given the progress we have made so far, it is disappointing that they have not returned to the table. “Since April, we have held more than nine bargaining sessions in a 20-day period,” Starbucks’ statement said. “We have reached over thirty (30) meaningful agreements on hundreds of issues that Workers United delegates told us were important to them, including many economic issues.”

The company said it pays an average of more than $18 an hour and offers what it calls “best-in-class” benefits, including health care, free college tuition, paid family leave and company stock grants.

“No other retailer offers such a comprehensive pay and benefits package,” the company said.

However, the union claims that Starbucks management has backtracked on initial progress since September, when Brian Niccol was named the new chief executive.

“In October, November and December, Starbucks failed to come up with viable economic proposals that included real investments in baristas,” said Michelle Eisen, a 14-year barista at Buffalo Starbucks who was one of the leaders of that city’s first organizing effort , in a union statement. “This is a step backwards from months of progress and promises from the company to work towards ratification of the framework by year-end. We are prepared to do whatever it takes to show the company the consequences of not keeping its promises to baristas.”

The union pointed to the company’s executive compensation, particularly the package for new CEO Brian Niccol, as a sign the company could do more. Niccol, who joined Starbucks in September, received a grant of 332,000 Starbucks shares as part of his deal, which will vest over the next three years. Those shares were worth $29.5 million as of Thursday’s close.

This story has been updated with additional reporting and context.