Each year, our partners and our customers look forward to Red Cup Day as an opportunity to uplift the holiday season while bringing people together over hand-crafted coffee. Despite demonstrations at fewer than 150 stores represented by Workers United, nearly all of those stores were supported with incremental staffing and open today sharing in moments of connection and joy with our customers.
Those participating in protests and other demonstration activities are calling on Starbucks to “come back to the bargaining table” so partners have a “voice in their scheduling, workplace pay [and] staffing.” Unfortunately, the union’s rhetoric misses the mark. Despite repeated weekly efforts to schedule bargaining sessions for stores represented by Workers United, their representatives haven’t shown up or agreed to meet to progress negotiations for any store in more than five months.
In contrast to stalled bargaining efforts with Workers United, we’re encouraged by the progress we’ve seen towards first contracts at stores where union representatives have approached bargaining with professionalism and an actual interest in discussing partner priorities with our bargaining committees. This year alone, Starbucks reached union contracts for two stores in its North American business and continue to progress contract talks with another union representing partners at a store in Pennsylvania. With this continued progress, we expect that, as envisioned by the NLRA, partners at a subset of our U.S. company-owned stores will eventually be subject to the terms of ratified store-specific collective bargaining agreements.
Pushing back on claims made by Workers United:
As referenced in our recent Q4 and Full Fiscal Year 2023 earnings call, Starbucks invested “over 20% of this year’s profits back into our partners and stores, through wages, training, equipment and new store growth.”
Counter to claims made by union organizers, all partners at U.S. company-owned stores — including those represented by a union — will receive recently announced 3-4% regular annual wage increases, consistent with raises provided the past two years. More than 75 union-represented stores will also receive wage increases, differentiated by tenure, of up to 5% based on when store partners notified the Company of their intent to pursue union representation.
We continue to create value for our partners by improving wages and scheduled hours for all partners — helping the average U.S. hourly partner realize a 20% increase in take home income over the past year, and doubling cash compensation since FY2020.
Promotional days take many forms, like Frappuccino happy hour, Star Days, ThursYays and our annual reusable red cup giveaway. Scheduling for promotional days varies year-over-year, but they have been consistently used by the Company throughout our history to engage with and delight our customers.
Our retail leaders have the flexibility to build and adjust staffing schedules to reflect the unique and dynamic needs of each store — balancing store resources and expected customer demand to ensure partners are on the floor when they’re needed most. Notably, stores are often provided additional hours to augment staffing in support of planned promotional days.
As recently announced, we’re also working to implement additional store scheduling improvements to provide all hourly U.S. partners more stability, flexibility and consistency in their weekly work schedules.
At stores where partners may choose to participate in publicized protest activities, we will make every effort to staff the store with partners interested and willing to work. Should local operators choose to close a store due to staffing constraints, we plan to offer partners wanting to work the opportunity to pick up shifts at other nearby stores. Partners choosing to participate in protest activities also have the right to submit their unconditional return to work at any time.
Customers are encouraged to use the Starbucks App or our online store locator to find an open store nearby.
