Still on strike, Starbucks union gains strength with organizing win in St. Paul

December 11, 2025 by

St. Paul baristas celebrate their successful union election at the Starbucks on West 7th Street. (@mnsbuxunited on Instagram)

Baristas at a Starbucks in St. Paul voted 18-1 in favor of forming a union with Workers United yesterday, as the union’s open-ended strike at over 130 cafés across the U.S. approaches the one-month point.

Workers at the Starbucks at 2525 West 7th St., near the intersection with Davern, filed for a union election Sept. 30, but the federal-government shutdown halted the National Labor Relations Board’s work, delaying the vote until Wednesday.

The organizing victory restores the number of Minnesota locations where workers have formed unions with Starbucks Workers United (SWU) to 14. Starbucks abruptly closed a unionized store at 300 Snelling Ave. S in September, giving workers just two days’ notice.

Union members at three Starbucks in the Twin Cities have joined the nationwide strike, according to a memo published by SWU. Workers have pledged to stay on strike until the company resumes negotiations over the framework for first contracts at its cafés.

The open-ended strike began Nov. 13, and baristas in St. Anthony were there for it, shutting down the store at 3704 Silverlake Rd. NE. They picketed along the busy street and held an afternoon rally in the parking lot, supported by dozens of community members and baristas from other stores.

Union members shut down the St. Anthony store on Day 1 of the nationwide strike.

Union baristas in Chanhassen began an open-ended strike at their store, located 190 Lake Dr. E, later that weekend. Workers at the Starbucks on the first floor of the Mall of American, near the rotunda, have since joined the strike too, according to SWU.

Anton Olson, an 11-year veteran of Starbucks who has worked the last five years in St. Anthony, said he and the two dozen other union members at the store were in the fight to win – as long as it takes.

“It’s a tough decision, but we have a bunch of people supporting us, and we’re supporting each other,” Olson said.

The easiest way to show support for Olson and other union baristas is to take the pledge at nocontractnocoffee.org. Striking baristas also welcome support on the picket line, with shifts and locations posted to an interactive map on the website.

And striking baristas plan to rally Dec. 20 at 2305 Fairview Avenue in Roseville, where workers voted to unionize in August 2022 but have not yet joined the strike.

In balloting that began Oct. 27, SWU members voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, with 92% support from participating baristas across the country. But each unionized store is a unique bargaining unit, which decides on its own when – and whether – to join the strike.

SWU represents over 11,000 baristas at about 550 Starbucks locations nationwide.

SWU and the company announced an agreement in February 2024 to begin negotiating a framework contract on the national level, making it easier for workers to settle a first contract on the local level.

That process resulted in key gains, union members say, but talks have stalled since Brian Niccol became CEO in September 2024. The two sides entered mediation earlier this year, but in the six months leading up to the strike, Starbucks refused to offer new proposals in response to workers’ key demands.

Striking baristas and supporters picket in St. Anthony.

Those demands include better staffing, higher pay and resolution of hundreds of unfair labor practice charges from bargaining units across the country.

Lorelei Lind, who works at the Fairview Avenue location, said Starbucks has made “unlawful changes” to its policies without consulting baristas’ union — “limiting our dress code, targeting partners with piercings, denying customers access to free water.”

“I have seen partners – experienced partners – belittled, their opinions ignored and their experience undermined,” Lind added.

In failing to consult with its workers, Niccols and other executives ignored safety, customer-satisfaction and other concerns, St. Anthony union member Foren Lee added.

“Time and time again, we have reiterated our demands to Starbucks,” Lee said. “Time and time again, we have received nothing in return but unfair labor practices, ever-changing [and] unlawful policy changes, two-day-notice store closures that laid off thousands of baristas, and a menu that increasingly grows less and less simplified.”

Baristas know that won’t change without a union contract, and they won’t get it without solidarity.

“Four years of time has seen it proved that a contract will not be given to us,” Lind said. “We must fight for it.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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As baristas warn of strike, Starbucks closes MN’s first unionized store

October 17, 2025 by

Baristas walk the picket line with community supporters at the unionized Starbucks in St. Anthony.

Starbucks has closed its café at 300 Snelling Ave. South in St. Paul, where baristas became the first in Minnesota to win a union election in April 2022.

The closure was part of a corporate restructuring in September that saw about 500 locations shut down.

Union shops, including Starbucks’ flagship coffee house in Seattle, were disproportionately impacted by the closures.

Starbucks Workers United represents over 12,000 baristas at 650 stores, roughly 3% of Starbucks locations in the U.S. Unionized locations made up about 14% of shuttered stores.

Phil Rienstra, who worked in the St. Paul store for two years before it closed, said he and other baristas learned on Thursday, Sept. 25, that the location would shut down for good that weekend.

Phil Rienstra is a former barista at the 300 Snelling store.

“It was sudden, it was callous and it was cruel,” Rienstra said of the abrupt closing. “Months and years of work for the company have been cast aside.”

Starbucks has yet to settle a first contract with any of the bargaining units that began forming at cafés across the country in late 2021. Workers at the St. Paul store briefly negotiated with the company’s representatives, who walked out of the meeting after about five minutes.

Talks shifted away from local bargaining teams in February 2024, when the company and Starbucks Workers United announced they would begin bargaining a national framework contract. The process shifted to mediation earlier this year and has stalled out under the leadership of new CEO Brian Niccol.

Union negotiators were able, however, to win an improved severance package for members impacted by the latest restructuring. In effects bargaining last month, Workers United secured, among other gains, severance pay for union baristas even if they turn down a transfer offer – a guarantee not extended to non-union baristas.

Rienstra said he and other union members were disappointed but not deterred by the closure, and he pledged to keep organizing for a union contract at Starbucks, wherever he ends up next.

Abby Haland says baristas at the St. Anthony Starbucks are ready to strike for a fair first contract.

“This round of layoffs created hundreds of angry but capable people, ready to fight for what they are owed and do whatever it takes to make our union heard,” Rienstra said. “Starbucks does not get to just ignore us.”

To that end, union baristas picketed outside a Starbucks in St. Anthony and in 35 other cities across the country during the week of Sept. 30, giving the company a taste of what could be coming if it doesn’t settle a fair contract soon.

The action in St. Anthony drew about 40 picketers – union members and community supporters – to the Starbucks at 3704 Silver Lake Rd., where they chanted, “no contract, no coffee!” and drew honks of encouragement from passing drivers.

As rush-hour traffic whizzed by, several baristas took the bullhorn to voice their contract demands – like better staffing, more reliable hours and higher pay. Abby Haland, a St. Anthony barista, told the crowd she’s ready to strike for a first contract – and asked for their support.

“Take the pledge, ‘No Contract, No Coffee!’” she said. “And pledge to stand with us on the picket line if we have to go on strike, which we are prepared to do.”

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Twin Cities nurses picket, demand hospitals put patients over profits

June 2, 2022 by

Nurses at United and Children’s hospitals in St. Paul combine their picket lines along Smith Avenue.

Registered nurses picketed outside 11 Twin Cities hospitals yesterday, calling on health care executives to put patients over profits in contract negotiations with their union, the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA).

Talks covering 15,000 nurses in the metro and Duluth began in March. Twin Cities nurses, who work at Allina Health, Children’s Hospital, M Health Fairview and North Memorial hospitals, saw their contracts expire Tuesday.

On a combined picket line outside United and Children’s hospitals in St. Paul, nurses said the crisis facing their profession demands urgency and bold action to keep nurses from leaving the bedside.

“I think a lot of our co-workers are waiting to see what happens with this contract to make determinations about what they’re going to do next, if they’re going to stay at the bedside,” United emergency department nurse Brittany Livaccari said. “We can’t continue to try to take care of patients and not be able to provide the care that we know they deserve. We’re ready to fight for our patients.”

But at the bargaining table, hospital administrators have failed to meet that urgency.

Instead, hospitals want concessions from the union to gain more scheduling flexibility, and they have balked at nurses’ demands for more say over staffing levels, increased pay, family and medical leave, and other measures to recruit and retain nurses.

Lisa Sanford, an intensive care nurse at Children’s in St. Paul and member of the bargaining committee, said management is back to treating nurses like numbers on a spreadsheet after showering essential workers with platitudes during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“For two years now we’ve been asked to put ourselves last, but now it’s become an expectation,” Sanford said. “It’s unsustainable, and it’s precisely why we have lost so many at the bedside.”

Sanford said “block scheduling” language in nurses’ previous union contract is “non-negotiable” for members of her bargaining unit, who rely on the stability it provides to care for themselves and their family members. More, she called management’s proposals to “float” more nurses between units a dangerous and unsustainable fix for staffing shortages.

“A nurse is not a nurse is not a nurse,” Sanford said. “It doesn’t do me any good to have a nurse who’s not an ICU nurse in my ICU. Nurses have set skills, and when you take them out of their environment, you put everybody at risk.”

Last month, the MNA released a report showing the number of reported staffing concerns from its members doubled from 2020 to 2021, pinning blame on hospitals for inadequately staffing units and failing to address high rates of turnover. Sanford said about 40% of nurses at her hospital have left the bedside.

But staffing issues didn’t start with the pandemic. Livaccari said Allina Health, which owns United Hospital, began “benchmarking” its nurse staffing in 2019, looking to align staffing levels with comparable hospitals in other parts of the country.

“They wanted us in the bottom 40th, meaning 60% of the hospitals that are benchmarked to (United) would have better staffing than we would,” she said. “In terms of patient care, that means we have delays, we have less time to spend individually with patients.

“Your emergency is an emergency, whether you’re about to stop breathing or your heart’s about to stop, or if you broke your arm. We don’t want you to have to wait. You shouldn’t have to wait eight hours for care. You shouldn’t even have to wait two hours, but that’s a typical thing we’re seeing.”

Livaccari and other nurses often point to short staffing’s “snowball effect,” as frustrations boil over into more nurses leaving the bedside, adding to the crisis. Many nurses that remain extend their work agreements to cover the gap, often at a cost to their own health.

“When you hear your co-workers are drowning and the patients are at risk, you want to go in,” said Sanford, who has increased her work hours by about 35%. “But it has absolutely taken a toll.”

Meanwhile, many hospitals have increased executive pay, and they continue to address high turnover rates by filling vacancies with temporary, traveling nurses, whose wages are significantly higher.

“Our CEO got a 47% increase in his pay from 2018 to 2019,” Sanford said. “I think they can handle giving us a little bit more.”

In addition to informational picketing yesterday, MNA also launched a new advertising campaign this week, highlighting hospital CEO pay and urging supporters to visit MNPatientsBeforeProfits.com to share their stories about the impact of short-staffing in hospitals.

“Hospital executives with million-dollar salaries have created a staffing and retention crisis which is pushing nurses away from the bedside,” MNA President Mary C. Turner said. “The future of our healthcare system depends on the choices we make now. Nurses are ready to fight and win for our patients and our practice. I hope the public will stand with us in our fight to put patients before profits in our hospitals.”

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