Starbucks’ Red Cup Day is back. Will it be affected by workers’ strike?
Starbucks’ Red Cup Day is back in time for the holidays, though a sweeping worker-led strike threatens to grind the coffee giant’s biggest promotional day of the year to a halt.
This year, the giveaway is set for Thursday, Nov. 16, according to Starbucks. Customers can snag a free, reusable red cup when they purchase any handcrafted holiday drink at participating locations nationwide, the company said this week.
The offer is also valid on online and delivery orders, while supplies last.
Starbucks Workers United, which represents thousands of Starbucks baristas, said employees plan to walk out during the company’s “biggest sales event of the season,” The Hill reported.
On the union’s website, it describes Red Cup Day as “one of the most infamously hard, understaffed days for the baristas that work them.” Its planned “Red Cup Rebellion” stands to impact more than 200 stores across the U.S., organizers said.
Solidarity actions are also being planned at non-union Starbucks stores.
McClatchy News reached out to Starbucks for comment Nov. 15 but hasn’t received a response.
Unionized workers are calling the company to the bargaining table to negotiate with unionized stores and address long-standing issues, such as understaffing, Starbucks Workers United said in a news release. The union is also asking Starbucks to cut off mobile ordering on promotional days, which can get especially busy.
Neha Cremin, a barista at a Starbucks in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, says Starbucks gives workers little notice before promotional days and doesn’t provide the extra staffing necessary to handle them.
“It’s nightmarish,” Cremin, who’s worked at the coffee house for four years, told McClatchy News in a phone interview. “We’ve got walk up orders, ... mobile orders going off, we’ve got delivery orders going off and we’re expected to keep up with all of this ... while we don’t have enough staffing to serve all these customers.”
The rushed environment puts employees at risk, Cremin said, not to mention longer wait times for customers.
Bruce Halstead, a barista at a Starbucks roastery in Seattle, Washington, painted an equally chaotic picture: “Partners will run themselves ragged having to do the job of three people sometimes because the demand of customers is a lot more,” he told The Guardian.
“Partners will leave their shifts in tears, they will injure themselves just trying to keep up with the demand of the cups and the drinks,” Halstead told the outlet. “We just want to bring awareness to this.”
Workers said Starbucks has refused to recognize their union’s efforts or demands. Thousands of Starbucks Workers United members plan to strike Thursday and are calling on customers to join their one-day action.
Starbucks “has demonstrated that they’re not willing to listen if we ask politely,” Cremin said. “So we’re taking direct action and using the power that we do have.”
As in years past, the company’s annual Red Cup Day is sure to send coffee lovers scrambling for one of Starbucks’ limited-edition tumblers. This year’s cup features “a whimsical mod design” with large, ornate sparkles, according to the company’s website.
Starbucks encourages customers to use the reusable cups for a 10 cent discount, plus 25 bonus reward points on mobile orders. The move is part of the brand’s effort to cut its waste by 50% by 2030, its website says.
This story was originally published November 15, 2023 at 11:05 AM.