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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Seeking ‘strength in numbers,’ Roseville baristas vote to join Starbucks union

March 19, 2025 by

Starbucks workers showed off their union petition outside the Roseville location. (SWU photo)

Baristas at two Starbucks cafés on opposite sides of Highway 36 in Roseville are now part of the same union.

In balloting overseen by the National Labor Relations Board on March 6, workers at the Starbucks south of Highway 36 and Fairview Avenue voted 16-3 to join Starbucks Workers United, which represents over 10,500 workers across the U.S.

Baristas formally requested union representation Feb. 3, less than 2 months after a worker from the Starbucks north of the interchange – unionized since August 2022 – picked up a “borrowed shift” at their café, according to Andraya Skelley, who has five years of experience working for the company.

“He talked to a few of my co-workers that night, and then they brought it to me,” Skelley said. “They were like, ‘Hey, you’re someone who’s been here for a long time. What do you think of us unionizing?’”

Skelley said she and other baristas had previously considered the idea, but momentum “fizzled out” after they watched the company illegally retaliate against the first wave of workers who unionized, withholding their raises, denying them credit-card tips and firing several union organizers.

The company was also slow to engage its workers in contract talks. When Starbucks finally agreed to bargain in 2023, its representatives stonewalled union negotiators in Minnesota and around the country, walking out of over 100 meetings shortly after they began.

But in February 2024, Workers United secured an agreement with Starbucks that expanded credit-card tipping and raises to its unionized locations, and laid out a timetable for negotiations on a framework for bargaining single-store contracts. In January the two sides enlisted the help of a mediator in that process.

Baristas at her Starbucks location, Skelley said, hope their overwhelming vote to join Workers United lends strength to the union in those negotiations.

“There’s strength in numbers,” she said. “The more stores that do unionize, the more Starbucks has to listen. The more the numbers keep going up, it becomes harder and harder to ignore.”

When the time comes to bargain a contract in Roseville, workers hope to address concerns around scheduling and wages. Skelley said that understaffing at the café, particularly during the midday shift or when a team member calls in sick, too often leaves baristas feeling “overextended.”

“I value this job, and I love interacting with the customers,” she said. “On a good day, it feels really good, and I hate how many bad days there’s been lately due to staffing issues. It feels like we don’t have enough support from upper management.”

Not surprisingly, upper managers gave their store plenty of attention in the runup to workers’ union election.

“We had our district manager in all the time; she was really up in our space,” Skelley said. “I wouldn’t say there was super obvious backlash, but it was kind of funny. She would ask if you have any questions, and we were just like, ‘Cool, thanks, I’ll let you know.’”

The newly organized Starbucks in Roseville brings the number unionized cafés in Minnesota up to 13.

Workers at the Starbucks on Snelling and Stanford avenues in St. Paul were the first to win a union election, in April 2022. Other unionized locations include Starbucks in Chanhassen, Duluth, Edina, Fridley, Mall of America, Minneapolis, Moorhead, St. Anthony and St. Cloud, where workers took a vote Feb. 25.

Workers at a 14th Minnesota location, in Sartell, are scheduled to hold a union vote April 7.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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