United States
Starbucks workers first voted to unionize with United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1001 in March 1985.[10] The unit included about 120 people.[11] Their contract, secured in 1986, brought health care coverage, paid vacation, and sick leave to Starbucks part-time workers in Seattle and its suburbs. Howard Schultz has claimed credit for initiating "the first company in America to provide comprehensive health insurance to part-time people" despite that when Schultz became president of the company in 1987, he reneged on his pledge to honor that contract, and that it had been the standard for more than a decade prior for UFCW part-timers. In new negotiations, Schultz wanted to expand the warehouse and roasting plant bargaining unit to include workers from the 11 Starbucks stores. This approach intended for the larger, diluted unit to reject the union but backfired when the store workers did the opposite. Schultz proposed reductions in medical benefits, work hours, just-cause termination protections established in the prior contract. These negotiations, interrupted by a movement to decertify the union, did not result in a collective bargaining contract.[12]
One store employee, Daryl Moore, together with signatures of other workers opposed to the union, successfully moved to decertify the union in late 1987. The union for warehouse and roasting plant workers was also decertified in 1992.[13] While company president Schultz wrote that the company had no involvement in the employee's decertification filing, local union leaders said that the company management had made the decertification filing and hired anti-union consultants and lawyers to help. In his 1997 memoir, Pour Your Heart Into It, Schultz defended his decisions saying, "If [Starbucks workers] had faith in me and my motives, they wouldn't need a union."[12]
In 2014, Starbucks workers started two petitions on Coworker.org, one demanding the company overturn its "no-tattoo policy", and the other to better scheduling practices.[14]
Between 1992 and 2021, the only unionized Starbucks employees were those who worked for other companies with unionized labor and a licensing agreement, such as those who operated kiosks in unionized supermarkets.[15]
On March 29, 2023 Howard Schultz testified in front of the US Senate Labor Committee. Schultz was asked by US Senator Bernie Sanders to respond to the ruling National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Judge Michael Rosas had made regarding Starbucks unionization. Rosas had said that "Starbucks had displayed "egregious and widespread misconduct"" in responding to the unionization efforts in Buffalo, New York. Rosas ordered that Schultz must read the employees of Starbucks their rights or be present at a meeting where those rights are read. Schultz said he would not comply with this ruling "...because Starbucks Coffee did not break the law."[16] On April 26, 2023 US labor board prosecutors indicated that the corporate leadership of Starbucks had not collectively bargained fairly with 144 unionized Starbucks cafes by essentially having "failed and refused" to negotiate with the unions which represent those sites. Furthermore the NLRB has made 80 claims that Starbucks has engaged in anti-union activity including threats to shutdown stores, and terminating employees because of their unionization activities.[17]
Industrial Workers of the World
In 2004, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or wobblies) led a grassroots campaign called "Starbucks Workers Union" in which workers across a number of cities, including Chicago, Illinois and New York City started organizing unions.[11][18] The IWW, which works outside the mainstream American labor movement, intended to prove that unions could break into the fast food industry. In New York City in 2006, four Manhattan stores ran an unsuccessful union drive with the campaign. The workers cited unlivable wages and difficulty securing enough hours to earn health benefits. The campaigns led to a series of NLRB cases that uncovered how corporate executives coordinated to fill union-supporting stores with anti-union hires.[19][20]
In 2008, the NLRB found that during the campaign, Starbucks committed 30 labor violations, including unlawfully terminating and threatening to discharge other union organizers to ward off union activity, unlawful surveillance and interrogation, and prohibiting the workers from discussing the union on their breaks.
Industrial Workers of the World
In 2004, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or wobblies) led a grassroots campaign called "Starbucks Workers Union" in which workers across a number of cities, including Chicago, Illinois and New York City started organizing unions.[11][18] The IWW, which works outside the mainstream American labor movement, intended to prove that unions could break into the fast food industry. In New York City in 2006, four Manhattan stores ran an unsuccessful union drive with the campaign. The workers cited unlivable wages and difficulty securing enough hours to earn health benefits. The campaigns led to a series of NLRB cases that uncovered how corporate executives coordinated to fill union-supporting stores with anti-union hires.[19][20]
In 2008, the NLRB found that during the campaign, Starbucks committed 30 labor violations, including unlawfully terminating and threatening to discharge other union organizers to ward off union activity, unlawful surveillance and interrogation, and prohibiting the workers from discussing the union on their breaks. Starbucks denied any wrongdoing, and one charge that an employee was fired for organizing, to be rehired with back pay, was reversed on appeal.
Canada
When 12 stores and a distribution plant in Vancouver, British Columbia unionized in the late-1990s with Canadian Auto Workers,[23] Starbucks extended the contract to non-union stores to mitigate unionization incentives, which it tried to undo in the subsequent contract. Western Canada union representation ended in the mid-2000s. More Starbucks stores unionized in Canada. A Quebec City store briefly unionized in 2009 through the IWW.[24]
In August 2020, a Victoria store joined United Steelworkers as the only unionized store in the country. Among their top grievances were COVID-19 pandemic safety precautions.[25] They signed a three-year agreement in 2021.[26]
Starting in 2023, with a store in Waterloo joining the United Steelworkers union, Ontario became the third Canadian province to have unionized locations.
Chile
Starbucks workers in Chile formed the Sindicato de Starbucks Coffee Chile union in 2009.[31][32] In 2011, the 200 workers of the union went on strike for better wages and health care, the first strike in the company's history. Their leaders began a hunger strike after receiving no corporate response from two weeks of striking. At the time, Chile had the company's largest union population, including about 30% of its 670 workers since the company entered the country in 2003. American IWW Starbucks Workers Union employees planned a "global week of action" in solidarity with the unaffiliated Chilean union.[33] The union signed a contract with Starbucks in 2015.[31] In March 2025, the union went on a 25 day strike.[32] As of February 2026, 2/3 of Starbucks workers in Chile are members of the union.[31]
New Zealand
Unite, a new union in New Zealand, led demonstrations against Starbucks in 2005 and negotiated a contract with the country's Starbucks operator offering 450 workers better pay and hours.
