As contract negotiations drag on, Texas Starbucks staff have discovered the ability of organizing

This text was initially printed by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative information outlet and journal. Join their weekly publication, or comply with them on Fb, X and Bluesky.

Victoria Hernandez, 23, was introduced into work on the Blanco Highway San Antonio Starbucks location in August 2025.

She’d begun working for the corporate at 17, whereas nonetheless in highschool, dutifully weathering the customarily thankless rush of caffeine-seeking clients for simply $10 an hour — even all through COVID. Quickly, Hernandez was serving to the $115-billion firm open up new shops and practice staff. 

Since December 2021, Starbucks staff started unionizing nationwide — demanding an finish to understaffing, pay raises, and an finish to union-busting practices — however the shops she labored at hadn’t joined within the organizing wave. Utilizing widespread union-busting ways, managers had informed her that union staff would get much less advantages and have been “simply attempting to fire up hassle.” She mentioned administration thought she might assist tamp down organizing on the Blanco Highway location.

Issues didn’t go that means. Lower than three months later, in mid-November, Hernandez was main her coworkers in a strike on the retailer as a part of a nationwide “Purple Cup Rebel” after negotiations between Starbucks Employees United and the corporate broke down. 

“I made connections with my different coworkers … and it made me notice that is truly empowering and unifies us,” Hernandez mentioned. “I used to be very excited for the chance to indicate that you would be able to train your proper and it must be regular to prepare your office and present your power as a employee.”

We’re out right here on strike right now!Don’t cross the picket line, be a part of it! And don’t purchase from Starbucks! #nocontractnocoffee #tobeapartner pic.twitter.com/VpgJgr4KDw— SATX SBWorkersUnited (@SATXSBWU) December 24, 2024

In Texas, staff at 29 Starbucks shops have unionized since June 2022. Nationally, that determine stands at 582, out of almost 17,000 nationwide, in accordance with a spokesperson at Starbucks Employees United. It’s the fastest-growing union marketing campaign in trendy historical past, a part of an organizing wave that’s lately halted organized labor’s statistical decline nationwide and even, in Texas, reversed the downward pattern. However forming a union is simply step one in utilizing federal labor regulation to enhance working situations, and the subsequent step—collective bargaining—has proceeded at a glacial tempo as the corporate stonewalls staff. Almost 5 years in, a primary contract continues to be nowhere in sight, although the company did agree in 2024 to work on a framework that might cowl all union shops and negotiations did resume earlier this month.

Kate Bronfenbrenner, a senior lecturer emeritus at Cornell College’s Industrial and Labor Relations Faculty, informed the Texas Observer that Starbucks’ apply of dragging out negotiations is a standard tactic deployed by employer-side regulation corporations equivalent to Littler Mendelson, which represents Starbucks. She added that getting an employer to comply with the regulation and discount in good religion is usually a chronic authorized course of, however to “get Starbucks to settle a contract, the union has to actually manage as lots of the shops as doable and construct allies with different unions, and make it so the price of not recognizing the union is larger than the price of bargaining.” 

On the Blanco Highway location, the Starbucks retailer was shut down for 2 months from November to December 2025. Hernandez had organized all 14 staff to take part within the strike. “It was very highly effective for them to see that the shop can’t run with out us,” Hernandez mentioned. 

Hernandez and her coworkers picketed on a regular basis of the week from 7 a.m. to midday. Once they weren’t protesting in entrance of the shop, they hosted neighborhood occasions to boost cash and consciousness. “I can not say sufficient how a lot individuals have been prepared to return out and help,” Hernandez mentioned. 

Trey Runyan, who for 3 years has been working on the first unionized Starbucks in Texas on North Lamar and forty fifth Road in Austin, is a member of the nationwide bargaining committee. 

In contrast to different unions with a standard top-down construction, the place paid union workers members discount for staff, Starbucks Employees United ensures that baristas are on the forefront of the decision-making course of. His store’s coworkers voted for Runyan to symbolize their retailer. As a delegate, he attends month-to-month Zoom conferences with greater than 200 delegates. Any settlement with Starbucks has to undergo the delegates. 

“These are lots of people which might be all preventing the identical battle,” Runyan mentioned. “It’s simply been so humbling and simply so profoundly wonderful to be part of a gaggle of individuals that actually need to care about one another.” 

The union’s present calls for embody that there be at the very least three baristas on the ground always, that wages begin at $17 per hour with a four-percent annual enhance, that well being and security precautions be improved, protections in opposition to discrimination be strengthened, and union-busting practices finish, amongst different calls for. 

In September 2024, seven months after the corporate agreed to work on a common framework for contracts, Brian Niccol took over the corporate. Employees say Starbucks backtracked on its guarantees and elevated union-busting actions. Niccol instituted the “Again to Starbucks” marketing campaign to reinforce customer support and reduce wait-time for orders, however staff the Observer spoke to mentioned that simply intensified their already heavy workload.

In September 2025, The Guardian reported Niccol acquired $97.8 million in whole compensation the prior 12 months—6,666 instances greater than the median annual wage of a Starbucks employee, $14,674, making it the most important CEO-to-worker pay hole among the many prime 500 firms in the US. The outlet additionally reported the corporate paid $3.8 billion to shareholders within the 2024 fiscal 12 months by means of inventory buybacks and dividends. 

Runyan makes slightly greater than $17 an hour on the Austin retailer, however like most different Starbucks staff, he works lower than 40 hours per week. This implies he takes house solely $2,000 a month. Over half of that goes to lease, $200 for groceries, and little or no for financial savings. Runyan totaled his automobile in an accident lately, however he can’t afford a brand new car on his wages. 

In Texas, the Dallas-Fort Value metro has the best portion of unionized Starbucks shops. Fourteen of the 29 Texas Starbucks union retailers are within the Metroplex space. 

Ben Estrello, a 24 year-old Starbucks barista, mentioned the organizing there began with College of North Texas school college students working at a Denton location and quickly expanded from there, together with to the place he works on the Preston Royal store in Dallas. 

Estrello informed the Observer that earlier than he began working at Starbucks, he delivered pizzas and labored at IHOP. “I’ve been doing meals service for some time and was on the lookout for one thing that had slightly bit extra neighborhood,” Estrello mentioned. 

However he was disillusioned to seek out out the corporate was not as progressive as he had heard, having admired its fame for supporting the LGBTQ+ neighborhood and the setting. Working beneath Niccol’s insurance policies, he discovered baristas have been pressured to jot down Charlie Kirk’s title on clients’ cups once they requested and topic to a brand new strict gown code. Within the weeks main as much as the union election at Estrello’s store, Starbucks executives consistently visited the shop and held “captive-audience” conferences to dissuade staff from unionizing. 

“We noticed people who we had by no means seen earlier than in our retailer virtually each day: higher-ups coming in and asking to sit down down and speak with us, typically for hours whilst you have been speculated to be working,” Estrello mentioned. One time, Starbucks executives shut down the shop for the evening and took all the staff bowling. “It had the alternative impact,” Estrello mentioned. “If the corporate is doing this a lot to try to get you to cease doing one thing, it’s going to present you a modicum of energy.” 

Starbucks didn’t reply to the Observer’s request for remark. 

“Texas Starbucks staff have impressed staff across the state and across the nation to battle for higher jobs and a fairer financial system,” U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, an Austin Democrat whose present district stretches into San Antonio, informed the Observer. “When Texas staff rise up for themselves, they rise up for the precise of all of us to stay in a rustic that works for everybody, not simply the wealthy and highly effective.” 

Regardless of the corporate’s ways, in September 2025, Estrello and his coworkers gained their union election. Two months later, they have been swept into that nationwide strike with tons of of Starbucks staff from across the nation. “We now have nice ambitions right here,” Estrello mentioned of organizing different Starbucks staff within the higher Dallas space. 

Whereas most different Starbucks staff across the nation returned to work in December, Estrello and his coworkers remained on strike for 102 days till February 25 this 12 months. (His retailer was stored working within the meantime utilizing non-union staff from different areas.) Throughout the complete time, they’ve been forging networks with baristas from different Starbucks shops, hitting non-union shops throughout their off-hours to information staff there by means of the unionization course of. 

“We now have an in in every single place,” Estrello mentioned. “It’s not exhausting to speak to different people who do the identical factor that you just do each day, and oftentimes they’ve the identical grievances that you just do. They don’t essentially know what the choice is to placing up with these grievances, and for those who allow them to know, they’re extra more likely to be a part of you.” 

Estrello calls different Starbucks staff his “second household” and mentioned their organizing has “given me a large amount of objective.” 

Like Estrello, Hernandez—the employee at San Antonio’s Blanco Highway location—informed the Observer her life has modified since organizing with different Starbucks staff.

“It’s taught me the quantity of power that I’ve and all of the issues that I can do,” Hernandez mentioned. “It confirmed me how far you may go, and the way a lot energy you’ve gotten as a employee.” 

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