Center City Starbucks workers join multi-city strike, claiming unfair labor practices

Baristas at the Starbucks at 16th and Walnut Streets joined workers in at least eight other cities in a strike on Sunday morning, picketing outside the Center City store in protest of what they say are unfair labor practices by the coffee giant.

According to Starbucks Workers United, employees have sought to shut down dozens of stores from New York to Seattle in a five-day strike in the run-up to Christmas, a period that is among the busiest times of year for the company.

Picketing in subfreezing temperatures, workers in Philadelphia marched in a circle, chanting “No contract, no coffee,” and booing when customers crossed the line to enter the store. The union said delivery drivers and many customers had refused to cross the picket line — and, by noon, the store closed for the day due to insufficient staffing, organizers said. The store was the 13th in Greater Philadelphia to join the union this past July, and is among more than 530 unionized stores nationwide employing more than 10,000 workers.

But the union has yet to negotiate a contact with Starbucks, and said that on Dec. 20 it filed a new unfair labor practice charge, alleging the company had refused to bargain and had acted in bad faith.

The union wants Starbucks to boost starting pay from $15.25 to $20 per hour. According to the union, the company’s most recent offer would have guaranteed only a 1.5% annual salary increase — which would amount to a 27-cent raise for the average hourly worker there.

Starbucks did not respond to requests for comment Sunday, but in a statement to the Associated Press last week said it was up to the union to return to the table to hammer out a contract.

The statement also downplayed the impact of the walkouts. The unionized cafés represent just a fraction of the company’s 10,000-store U.S. footprint.

“We are aware of disruption at a small handful of stores,” the statement said, “but the overwhelming majority of our U.S. stores remain open and serving customers as normal.”

In the last few years, workers have alleged that Starbucks violated Philadelphia’s Fair Workweek law and that the company shut down a store at 10th and Chestnut Streets to prevent workers from organizing there.

Silvia Baldwin, 28, who works at Starbucks at 34th and Walnut Streets in West Philadelphia, said she’d been there since 7 a.m. to demand “an actual dignified wage offer” and to protest unfair labor practices.

Because of stagnant pay and insufficient, unpredictable hours, she said many workers can’t afford to live in the communities where they work.

“Coworkers are behind on rent, really struggling, can’t get the hours they need, or are falling below the hour threshold to keep the benefits they do have,“ she said.

Baldwin said there had been progress in bargaining this year, but that had disappeared after the company installed new chief executive Brian Niccol.

The same improvements workers are asking for would also result in better experience for customers, who she said can wait as long as 45 minutes for drinks when stores are staffed on skeleton crews.

“We’re trying so hard to improve this company,” she said, “to improve our jobs.”