{"id":419717,"date":"2026-07-31T17:23:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/419717\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T17:23:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:23:48","slug":"san-francisco-ghirardelli-workers-strike-at-iconic-flagship-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/419717\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Ghirardelli Workers Strike at Iconic Flagship Store"},"content":{"rendered":"

Striking workers say the Bay Area chocolate maker is proposing to raise employee healthcare costs.\n<\/p>\n

Jul 31, 2026<\/p>\n

Updated 10:09 am PT<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Ghirardelli factory sign, seen from the San Francisco wharf, on March 21, 2025. The walkout is expected to end on Saturday night.\u00a0(David Barreda\/KQED)<\/p>\n

Dozens of chocolatiers, cashiers and other employees at the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company\u2019s flagship store in San Francisco<\/a> entered the second day of a strike on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The walkout, expected to end Saturday night, aims to pressure the company to agree to concessions after more than a year of contract negotiations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Picketers at Ghirardelli Square urged consumers to boycott the brand\u2019s popular business at one of the city\u2019s most iconic tourist destinations. The strike at the Original Ghirardelli Chocolate & Ice Cream Shop is the first in more than 40 years, and comes as unionized employees oppose a company proposal they said would gut their health care benefits, making them more expensive.<\/p>\n

\"\"Workers picket outside Ghirardelli\u2019s flagship store in San Francisco on July 30, 2026.<\/p>\n

Fredrick Jones, a greeter at the shop for 17 years, told KQED he fears not being able to afford medication that keeps his body from rejecting a heart transplant he underwent last October.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis benefit that we have right now is very important to us. It helped me out big time with my heart transplant,\u201d Jones, a 47-year-old San Francisco resident, said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re doing this strike, to let people know that the company is not respecting employees like they should.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Lindt & Spr\u00fcngli Group, which owns Ghirardelli, said in a statement that the company values and respects its employees.<\/p>\n

\"\"Josh Sokolski (left) and Brenda Hinaga (right), both occupational therapists from Kaiser Walnut Creek, march while on strike at the picket line outside Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center on Feb. 19, 2026. Kaiser workers on the picket lines have gone without their paychecks for four weeks, and many are facing financial and other difficulties.<\/p>\n

\u201cCustomers expect, \u2018Oh, okay, this [fee] is gonna cover workers\u2019 health insurance.\u2019 And yet, Ghirardelli is trying to cut their health insurance,\u201d Karabel said. \u201cThey need to be transparent about what kind of resources they\u2019re getting from customers that are supposed to be dedicated to paying for health care coverage.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last year, disputes over health benefits became a flash point driving work stoppages nationwide, as medical coverage costs continued to rise, according to a report<\/a> by researchers at Cornell University\u2019s Labor Action Tracker.<\/p>\n

In recent months, Bay Area service workers<\/a> at the University of California, warehouse staff at the C&H Sugar refinery<\/a> in Crockett and patient care employees at Kaiser Permanente<\/a> have said that protecting or improving their health insurance was a main reason for striking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Striking workers say the Bay Area chocolate maker is proposing to raise employee healthcare costs. Jul 31, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-419717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419717","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=419717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}