‘No workers, no Starbucks’

12,000 baristas continue to fight for a union contract with fair pay while Starbucks CEO rakes in millions 

SEATTLE, WA (September 23, 2025) — Starbucks workers, fellow union members, and community supporters rallied outside the Seattle Roastery on Monday, bringing their fight for a fair contract to one of the company’s most iconic storefronts. Nearly four years after the first stores in Buffalo, New York organized together to form Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), thousands of now-union baristas across the U.S. are still without a contract.

The union is comprised of more than 12,000 Starbucks workers at 650 stores in 45 states and the District of Columbia. Baristas are pushing for a contract that delivers improved staffing, better hours and take-home pay, as well as strong on-the-job protections. 

Per SBWU, settling a union contract would cost Starbucks less than one average days’ sales, yet the company is stonewalling baristas. The union notes that Starbucks paid CEO Brian Niccol $96 million in compensation for just four months of work in 2024, amounting to the biggest CEO-to-worker pay gap in the country. Niccol has also been given a private jet by the company to get him from his home in California to company headquarters in Seattle.

While Niccol commutes on a private jet, baristas have had to sue to recoup the money they had to shell out to adhere to the company’s new dress code policy, which was imposed without bargaining with the union.

Workers outside the Seattle Roastery. Photo: MLK Labor

The rally comes after the union filed multiple unfair labor practice (ULP) charges against Starbucks with the NLRB in recent months, alleging the company is retaliating against workers for organizing. SBWU reports that Starbucks unjustly fired three union organizers at the Seattle Roastery and SODO Reserve Starbucks last month.

And when a location in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood temporarily closed for a remodel, Starbucks refused to place baristas in nearby stores during the closure, telling them they are “welcome to seek public assistance” to make up for two weeks of lost income. This refusal reversed years of past precedent in which the company and union worked to ensure baristas could pick up shifts at nearby stores, per SBWU.

While continuing to object at the bargaining table to proposals to improve staffing and other concerns, Starbucks is facing outside pressure from a coalition of dozens of labor and community organizations to bargain in good faith. And the company’s intransigence is allowing a staffing crisis to persist in stores across the U.S. In a new survey of current Starbucks baristas by the Strategic Organizing Center and Workers United, 91% of respondents reported understaffing at their stores, with 93% saying this caused long wait times for customers.

In the words of the workers picketing the Roastery on Monday: “No workers, no Starbucks!”