{"id":272432,"date":"2026-04-17T10:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/272432\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T10:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:47:07","slug":"ydsa-stands-against-starbucks-union-busting-the-state-hornet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/272432\/","title":{"rendered":"YDSA stands against Starbucks\u2019 union busting \u2013 The State Hornet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: This article was submitted by a member of the community. For questions and inquiries directed at the author, please reach out to [email\u00a0protected]<\/a> or their Instagram @hornetsydsa.<\/p>\n

Here at Sacramento State, the amounts of caffeine consumed by students to get them through their finals would be in the hundreds of thousands of gallons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My name is Tyler Nielsen, and I am the communications director of Hornets Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), as well as a student in the Communications Studies Department. Speaking from experience, I myself consume at least three cups of coffee per day just to sustain my hours-long study sessions while still being able to make it to class and work a full-time job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, I, along with the rest of Hornets YDSA will not be buying our coffee from any Starbucks locations on campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since Nov. 13, 2025, over 1,000 Starbucks workers across the country<\/a>, with the support of Starbucks Workers United (SBSU), have gone on strike to advocate for their own rights as workers to unionize, to be paid a fair wage and to receive the same benefits as other unions<\/a> in the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In light of these strikes, the question for Sacramento State arises, should we even have Starbucks locations on our campus?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hornets YDSA has voted to join the national \u201cStudents Against Starbucks<\/a>\u201d campaign in kicking Starbucks off of our campus and replacing them with local coffee shops that respect the rights of student workers, while providing quality coffee to the student body.<\/p>\n

Just this year alone, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) or their administrative law judges (ALJs) have found that<\/a> Starbucks has committed more than 400 labor law violations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These unfair labor practice charges include retaliatory firings and intimidation of union workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the knowledge that Starbucks is a prolific labor law violator, the question must be asked: why would any college offer a contract to Starbucks to serve coffee on their campus? We have other coffee shops already, such as the beloved Grumpy Mule and Java City, why not replace these Starbucks with local coffee shops?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starbucks baristas are the face of one of the biggest and boldest labor movements in history. <\/p>\n

They demand their voices be heard in their calls for unionization, but Starbucks, under Starbucks Corporation Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Brian Niccol\u2019s<\/a> regime, has continually dragged their feet in resolving their pending labor abuse charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is why a strike is not only necessary but the only course of action and why we are advocating for the expulsion of Starbucks on college campuses.<\/p>\n

Over the last four years<\/a>, 11,000 Starbucks workers have organized over 650 stores, demanding respect for their fundamental rights as workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our campus and our workers should support this push to address understaffing, low wages and unpredictable hours \u2014 something that we as employees and students know all too well.<\/p>\n

The common line from the company<\/a> is that they simply cannot afford to make a union contract. However, Niccol received $96 million in the last four years, which is 6,666 times more than the average barista or wage worker.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While we have to hope that our car won\u2019t break down or our bus will be on time just so we can make it to class or work, the company pays for his private jet along with massive bonuses to those in the C-suite of Starbucks.<\/p>\n

College students need to stand up and stand with their fellow student workers just as the students at Cornell<\/a>, UCLA<\/a>, other CSU campuses and many other campuses across the nation have.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We here at Sacramento State should follow their example and stand with the union against Niccol and the Starbucks brand. We as a student body have shown recently that our voices carry weight, with President Luke Wood being confronted by students protesting next year\u2019s dorm requirements.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was brought to task over his mismanagement of our tuition and massive budget cuts, as well as confronted over the $100,000 disaster that was the Lil Yachty performance after our football game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

RELATED: Upcoming post-game concert prompts safety concerns after unsuccessful Lil Yachty performance<\/a><\/p>\n

While the university partners with labor law violators like Starbucks and cuts the library\u2019s operating budget <\/a>by 53%, Wood just recently received a 6% salary increase<\/a>, raising his take-home pay to $504,799 per year. While this is nowhere near that of Niccol, the parallels are stark.<\/p>\n

We must stand up to Wood and the organizing body at Sacramento State. We must tell them that we no longer want Starbucks on our campus and advocate for the student workers on campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their struggle is our struggle. While their working conditions deteriorate, so do our school conditions. We must stand up to those in power who seek to disenfranchise us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stand up to Wood and Niccol, and make your voices heard on campus, so we can better all of our conditions and stop the overreach of the power holders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s Note: This article was submitted by a member of the community. For questions and inquiries directed at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-272432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}