DICKSON CITY, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) — In Dickson City, these baristas aren’t brewing coffee, they’re brewing revolution.
November 13th was Red Cup Day at Starbucks; it was also the day that hundreds of Starbucks locations across the country went on strike kicking off the “red cup revolution”.
Called Starbucks Workers United, the union strikers have three main demands: higher pay, better scheduling, and the company agreeing to bargain with the union.
“We want better staffing in order to make our customers happy and obviously make us less stressed and more happy,” explained Ariana Romanowski, a Starbucks barista and striker. “And we want better pay because if we are going to be short staffed or if we are going to be doing the job of multiple people, we should be fairly compensated for that.”
While a few decided to keep working, most of the baristas were outside all day, holding signs and chanting and trying to stay warm as temperatures ranged in the mid-twenties. And they’re just getting started.
“We plan to strike until Brian Niccol decides to come back to the bargaining table and agree and settle our contracts,” Romanowski continued. “We’re just getting more comfortable and stronger every day.”
While more than 650 stores have joined the fight, that accounts for just .04 percent of the over 16,600 locations in the US and since the strike has started, Starbucks has said that its turnover is nearly half the industry average and that its locations get more than a million job applications a year. While no sides have budged in the three weeks since starting, the strikers are confident – and in their eyes, fighting for something bigger than croissants and cappuccinos.
Romanowski said, “We want to establish the workers movement for the 21st century, I feel like it’s kind of stagnated and it’s really important to bring that back because without unions we wouldn’t have any workers rights at all.”