Starbucks Workers United, a union representing Starbucks baristas, has presented a set of demands to Starbucks’ management in Seattle. The union’s proposals include a $20 an hour starting wage nationwide, a 32-hour week guarantee for full-time employees, a 100% employer-covered health-care plan for full- and part-time workers, and credit card tipping at all stores. The union has been researching and debating the proposals for more than six months. The session lasted close to four hours, and although workers did not get a chance to share all of their demands with management, the demands were presented in the meeting.
Starbucks workers nationwide went on strike on Wednesday, the day before the company’s annual shareholder meeting, to make a point to the new CEO, Laxman Narasimhan. Starbucks’ founder, Howard Schultz, stepped down from his role as leader of the company on Monday, though he still plans to testify before Congress next week about its labor practices. Over the past 16 months, Starbucks baristas have voted to unionize at 288 of the company’s 9,000 corporate-owned stores, making for one of the most high-profile labor battles in decades, despite the company’s effort to stamp out the campaign. The union says Starbucks has insisted on bargaining store-by-store rather than with the union as a single unit, while Starbucks says the union requested store-by-store organizing at the start of its campaign.
