More than 2,000 workers at 112 Starbucks locations across the United States joined the first nationwide strike that lasted one day, in a year-long attempt at unionization.
The coffee company owns roughly 9,000 locations in the United States with over 70,000 employees.
The Starbucks employees walked off the job on Nov. 17, hoping to shut down shops as they protested the coffee chain’s approach to union contract negotiations, at the start of its profitable holiday season.
Striking workers called the walkout the “Red Cup Rebellion,” which spread across 25 states, covering 112 stores in cities like Seattle, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Eugene, and Ann Arbor.
The strike coincided with Starbucks’s annual “Red Cup Day,” when its stores hand out free, red reusable travel mugs to customers who order particular beverages, causing lines of customers to gather early to collect the free giveaway….