“There is an unfair labor practice strike going on right now,” said Aharon Williams, the union delegate for the Starbucks at Lakeside Drive and McCarran Boulevard, through a bullhorn to customers as they attempted to order coffee at the drive-through speaker on Tuesday, Dec. 23.
The store had been closed from 7 a.m. to noon each day for a week—hours when the busy store is normally serving customers. Of its 16 employees, the 13 who are members of the union Starbucks Workers United had been participating in the Red Cup Rebellion. More than 3,800 union baristas across the nation have been on an open-ended strike since Nov. 13 to demand better staffing, increased pay and the resolution of a slew of labor disputes.
On Tuesday morning, several baristas crossed the picket line and returned to work. Williams and another barista, Julia Black, remained on strike and began picketing at 7 a.m.
About 30 minutes after picketing started, the drive-through line closed, meaning customers had to go inside to order—a fact that Black excitedly shared with two baristas who arrived just moments later.
“There is a personal sacrifice,” said Williams, of his ongoing participation in the strike. While the union has a strike fund, it doesn’t cover the full wages of each worker.
A week of striking in Northern Nevada
The Northern Nevada strike began at 5:40 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 15, when union baristas from across the West Coast, with allies from the Coalition of Independent Unions and the Northern Nevada Democratic Socialists of America (NNDSA), blocked work trucks from entering or exiting the Starbucks Carson Valley Roasting Plant and Distribution Center in Minden.
By 10:15 a.m., the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office had issued trespassing citations to 32 picketers, and protesters left the premises.
As this happened, baristas from the Lakeside Starbucks—the only unionized store in Reno, and the only one striking—picketed from 7 a.m. to noon. At 3 p.m., more than 40 baristas from out-of-state union stores and allies arrived to hold a picket line rally alongside local workers to mark the one-month anniversary of the national Red Cup Rebellion strike, according to a press release.
A chant leader holding a Dutch Bros. Coffee cup chanted, “No contract!” The crowd responded, “No coffee!”
In the crowd was the Northern Nevada Central Labor Council Communications Director Wendy Colborne. The NNCLC has been supporting SWU by attending rallies and featuring SWU’s No Contract, No Coffee Pledge on their website.
“Every worker deserves a fair wage,” Colborne said. “Every worker deserves to be treated with respect, and these workers just want a contract, so I’m here to stand in solidarity with these workers as they fight for that contract.”
“People want to get past where they’re just barely getting by. For me, it’s the ability to have an extra $500 or $1,000 for an emergency.”
Striking STarbucks worker Aharon Williams
SWU, after four years of negotiating with Starbucks, has failed to secure a contract with the major coffee retailer.
NNDSA co-chair and Strike Solidarity Captain Vida Gomez considered the union’s efforts to delay deliveries and hinder Starbucks operations on Dec. 15 a success.
“Starbucks has very specific logistics where you can’t really be delaying truck deliveries for four or five hours like that,” said Gomez. Items for delivery could include perishable products like sandwiches or salads that are labeled to the hour of when they will expire and are no longer fit to serve customers. For Starbucks stores receiving these deliveries, it means less time to sell and a potential for greater product waste.
What’s at stake
Among the strikers’ demands is increased pay.
Starting pay for baristas in Reno is anywhere between $15.25 to $17.31 plus tips. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) living wage calculator, a living wage for a single person working full time in Washoe County is $23.61 as of February 2025.
“People want to get past where they’re just barely getting by,” Williams said. “For me, it’s the ability to have an extra $500 or $1,000 for an emergency.”
The strikers also want better staffing.
“Understaffing is rampant, leading to longer wait times as customer orders stream in,” reads a Dec. 15 press release from SWU. “Yet too many baristas still aren’t getting enough hours to pay the bills or meet the threshold for benefits. Starbucks needs to invest in increasing our hours.”
For workers trying to maintain benefits eligibility, unpredictable hours can mean that they can lose eligibility at any moment. For Starbucks workers who require consistent medical care or who encounter sudden medical expenses, unreliable health insurance coverage could be devastating to their ability to pay their bills.
SWU is also demanding that Starbucks fully resolve legal issues impacting baristas, including charges for illegal firing and retaliation for union activities. SWU’s website alleges that Starbucks needs to resolve “hundreds of unfair labor practice charges.”
Early in December, Starbucks agreed to pay a $35 million settlement to more than 15,000 New York City workers for claims that the company denied them stable schedules and arbitrarily cut hours. The company is still facing more than 600 open cases of alleged unfair labor practices filed by the National Labor Relations Board.
Williams and any still-striking baristas at his store plan to continue their strike every morning from 7 a.m. to noon until Christmas Day.
Correction: This article was updated at 12:30 p.m. on Dec. 24 to correct an error. We initially reported that the date on which the Starbucks drive-thru window was open and then closed again was Monday, Dec. 22. It was Tuesday, Dec. 23.