Workers at this New York Starbucks store and hundreds of other locations walked off their jobs during a key promotional event on Thursday.
They demanded improved staffing and schedules, the Workers United union said on social media platform X.
The walkout came on the coffee chain's Red Cup Day event, during which Starbucks hands out free red-colored, reusable, holiday-themed cups to customers on their coffee purchases.
Edwin Palma Solis is a Starbucks Barista Trainer (8794)
"We want to make sure that we have better pay, staffing, scheduling, and we have the right amount of hours to work because they've been improperly staffing us. And sometimes it just makes it harder for us to work. Sometimes we feel like we work for two people instead of one and we're just tired. We're just really tired of overworking ourselves."
Starbucks said on Thursday its stores in the United States were open, adding that a few dozen stores were on strike.
Red Cup day has typically been a major driver of store traffic, with data from analytics company Placer.ai showing that visits to U.S. Starbucks stores on the same day last year jumped 94% over the daily average for the full year.
Workers United, which represents more than 9,000 Starbucks employees at about 360 U.S. stores, has said the event was one of the "most infamously hard, understaffed days," as drink orders pile up and employees end up on the receiving end of abuse from frustrated customers over long wait times.
Earlier this month, Starbucks said it would raise hourly pay for its U.S. retail workers by at least 3% from 2024, which employees criticized, calling it "tone deaf" given Starbucks' 11% increase in fourth-quarter revenue and the recent wage hikes won by auto workers.
