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Hours after Mayor Bruce Harrell conceded Seattle’s mayoral race, Mayor-elect Katie Wilson joined Starbucks baristas and allied labor groups at a rally Thursday, pledging to boycott the company until workers secure a contract.
Dozens of workers and supporters gathered around 4 p.m. in front of the closed Starbucks Reserve Roastery on Pike Street, chanting in the drizzly rain and waving picket signs as Wilson took to the stage. She told the crowd she was proud to stand with baristas in solidarity.
“The baristas have shared that the best way to show our support is not to buy Starbucks in solidarity,” Wilson said. “Together, we can send a powerful message: no contract, no coffee.”
She closed with a message for the company: “This is your hometown and mine. Seattle’s making some changes right now, and I urge you to do the right thing.”
Workers at 40 unionized Starbucks stores nationwide went on strike yesterday after over a year of stalled contract talks and ongoing unfair labor practices (ULPs). Starbucks Workers United said national contract bargaining began 18 months ago, but the company stopped offering new proposals altogether six months ago. And despite this, Starbucks kept rolling out new policies without bargaining for them. According to the National Labor Relations Board, the company has about700 unresolved ULP charges.
State Rep. Shaun Scott, a socialist whose district includes Capitol Hill, spoke to the crowd, framing the strike as part of a broader fight against corporate power in an increasingly unaffordable city.
“I hear so many people ask in the state legislature when we talk about taxing the ultra-wealthy,” Scott said. “‘If we make life too hard on major corporations in Washington state, what happens if they leave?’ I’m much more concerned about the working people that are going to be displaced because of low wages.”
Sofia Wagerman, a former Starbucks employee from California, told the crowd she was forced to leave Starbucks because she could no longer make ends meet, but that efforts to decertify their store failed “because of our solidarity and our power.”
In a statement yesterday, Starbucks Director of Global Communications Jaci Anderson said the company was disappointed that the union went on strike, and that “when the union is ready to come back to the bargaining table, we’re ready to talk.”