Workers at the Broadway and McCoy Starbucks location in Santa Maria walked out of work on Starbucks’ “Founder’s Day” as a part of a nationwide strike of Starbucks employees.
Workers at 113 unionized Starbucks locations walked out of work on March 22 in reaction to Starbucks’ refusal to participate in bargaining with unionized Starbucks workers to negotiate their union contracts. Workers similarly were striking against Starbucks for illegally reducing employees’ hours.
“Not only is it a loss in shift supervisor hours, it resulted in cuts in barista hours too,” Jaylee Moore, an organizer for Starbucks workers at the Broadway and McCoy store, told Mustang News at the strike. “It’s been really harmful to our team and that’s why we are out here today.”
Workers at the Broadway and McCoy store won their union election in October, Mustang News previously reported. However, Moore says that Starbucks hasn’t begun negotiating with workers at their store. The same is true of virtually all unionized Starbucks locations.
Moore says the national Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) organization and local labor unions were instrumental in helping them organize a national strike.
“Our store is strong, nobody is coming into work, so they have to shut down the store the whole day,” Moore said. “[This strike] means we are united, we are in this together, we are finally able to fight back against the changes we don’t want to see happen… It’s really exciting.”
Starbucks shareholders voted in favor of a resolution on March 23 that creates an independent oversight board to ensure that Starbucks is not violating labor laws and inhibits the ability of Starbucks to use union-busting tactics.
Former CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz also testified in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee regarding Starbucks’ labor practices on March 29.