Starbucks Workers United: Four Years Without a Contract and the March 2026 Proposal That Could Break the Deadlock

Four years into what has become the longest first-contract standoff in the history of major U.S. restaurant and fast-casual companies, Starbucks Workers United sent a fresh comprehensive proposal to the company on March 13, 2026. The union is asking for 4% annual wage increases and a set of workplace protections covering discrimination, unjust termination, store closures, and scheduling. Starbucks responded by proposing to resume in-person bargaining sessions on March 30, with continued talks running through April.

That's a narrow window, and both sides know it.

The union first began organizing in earnest in late 2021, scoring early wins that made headlines. By mid-2022, hundreds of stores had voted to unionize in a wave that caught Starbucks management flatfooted. But winning a union election and winning a contract are entirely different fights, and the company's willingness to let time work against the union has been relentless. The two sides last held formal negotiations in December 2024. In the intervening 15 months, nothing was signed.

What the Union Is Asking For

The March 13 proposal centers on several interconnected demands. The 4% annual raise figure is the headline, but the harder lift may be the non-wage protections. Workers United is pressing for explicit contractual language around protections against discrimination, clear standards for what constitutes just cause before terminating a worker, and meaningful constraints on the company's ability to temporarily or permanently close stores with organized workforces.

That last point carries particular weight right now. Starbucks is simultaneously executing a billion-dollar restructuring that includes more than 2,000 layoffs and a program of store closures. The union wants language that prevents the company from using restructuring as cover for targeted closures of unionized locations. Without contract protections in place, workers at unionized stores facing closure have limited recourse beyond the standard NLRB process, which is slow and often inconclusive.

Scheduling is also on the table. Consistent and predictable hours are a recurring grievance at Starbucks locations across the country. Baristas report significant variation week to week that makes it difficult to plan around second jobs, childcare, or school schedules. The union wants minimum hour guarantees and advance notice requirements baked into any agreement.

The Holiday Strike and Its Aftermath

The current bargaining situation didn't arrive quietly. Over the 2025 holiday season, baristas in more than 40 cities launched an open-ended strike that stretched over several weeks, timed to hit the company during one of its most traffic-intensive periods of the year. The action was notable for its duration and geographic breadth, even if its impact on overall system sales was difficult to measure given that unionized stores represent roughly 6% of Starbucks' company-owned U.S. locations.

Earlier in 2025, barista delegates had voted down an economic package proposed by the company, signaling that the union's rank and file was prepared to reject deals that didn't meet their core demands. The strike that followed reflected that hardened posture. Workers who had been waiting for a contract for three-plus years at that point weren't willing to accept a package they saw as insufficient.

For Starbucks, the operational disruption of a multi-week, multi-city strike during the holidays was real. Whether it was enough to move the company toward more meaningful concessions is what March 30 and the April sessions will begin to reveal.

Investor Pressure Enters the Picture

The standoff has attracted attention beyond the bargaining table. New York City Comptroller Mark Levine formally urged institutional investors to vote against the re-election of two Starbucks board directors, Jorgen Vig Knudstorp and Beth Ford, citing the company's handling of its labor relations. The NYC Comptroller's office manages pension funds with significant public employee exposure to Starbucks equity, giving that office legitimate standing to raise governance questions.

Levine's call is part of a broader pattern of investor activism focused on labor governance at consumer companies. The argument is straightforward: prolonged labor conflict carries reputational and operational risk, and a board that cannot resolve a first-contract negotiation after four years is failing at a basic oversight function. Whether the shareholder vote moves the needle on management behavior or serves primarily as a political signal is a separate question, but the fact that board directors are now named in this dispute is a pressure point the company has to manage.

Brian Niccol, "Back to Starbucks," and the Labor Blind Spot

Brian Niccol arrived as CEO in late 2024 with a mandate to fix a company that had lost its way. His "Back to Starbucks" turnaround plan emphasizes hospitality, coffeehouse ambiance, operational simplicity, and a return to the brand's core identity. By the metrics Niccol has emphasized, including early traffic indicators and the sentiment from investor calls, the turnaround is showing signs of traction.

But the union situation remains conspicuously unresolved, and that creates a structural tension in the "Back to Starbucks" narrative. The brand's identity has historically leaned on the idea of Starbucks as a progressive employer, a company that treated workers better than industry norms. That story is harder to tell when the baristas at 6% of your stores have been waiting four years for a first contract, a strike just disrupted holiday operations in 40-plus cities, and institutional investors are calling for board accountability.

Niccol's turnaround depends heavily on the people serving the coffee. Store-level execution, the warmth of the customer experience, the consistency of the product, all of it runs through the barista. A workforce in a prolonged unresolved labor fight is not the foundation for the service improvement Niccol is promising.

The Billion-Dollar Restructuring Complication

Starbucks is not a company standing still while negotiations proceed. The restructuring underway involves more than 2,000 corporate and support function layoffs, and an ongoing program of store closures. From the union's perspective, this creates urgency: every month without contract language on store closures is a month during which a unionized location could be shuttered without specific contractual protections applying.

The company would argue that restructuring decisions are made on business grounds, not labor grounds, and that NLRA obligations around bargaining over closures still apply. The union's view is that vague statutory obligations are insufficient and that explicit contractual language is necessary for workers to have real protection.

This is not an abstract debate. Workers United has documented cases it believes represent retaliation through targeted closure of organized stores. The NLRB has investigated some of those cases. The outcome of April's bargaining sessions will determine whether the company is willing to put closure-related protections in a contract or whether that issue remains a sticking point.

What Four Years Without a Contract Means in Practice

There's no precise historical analogue for what's happening at Starbucks. The combination of scale, brand visibility, and duration makes this the most consequential first-contract standoff in modern QSR and fast-casual history. More than 500 Starbucks locations have union representation, and none of them have a contract.

Under the NLRA, both parties must bargain in good faith, but the law does not require either side to agree to specific terms. Starbucks has faced multiple NLRB complaints and adverse rulings over its bargaining conduct, including findings related to direct dealings with workers and failures to bargain over unilateral changes. The company has contested many of those findings and the legal proceedings continue in parallel with the negotiations.

From an operator's perspective outside Starbucks, the situation underscores a few durable points about labor organizing in food service. First, the time from election to contract is long even in favorable conditions. Unions that organize individual stores face a difficult collective action problem: the employer bargains at each store separately (or in groups), and resources are stretched. Second, the features workers are pushing hardest for at Starbucks, predictable hours, protection against arbitrary firing, and constraints on store closures, are the same issues that surface in organizing campaigns across the industry. They aren't unique to coffee.

Third, and most relevant to operators watching this unfold: the cost of a prolonged standoff compounds. Starbucks has spent heavily on legal fees, settlements, and compliance costs related to NLRB proceedings. The brand has absorbed reputational damage in a segment of its customer base that values its labor positioning. And the turnaround CEO now has to sell a "people-first" narrative while a first-contract negotiation enters its fifth year.

What April Will Reveal

The March 30 start date for resumed bargaining and the April session schedule give both sides a concrete window. The union filed its comprehensive proposal on March 13, giving Starbucks roughly two weeks to prepare a substantive response before the parties sit down again. That preparation period matters. If the company arrives with a counter that addresses the core structural issues around closures and just cause, there is a path to movement. If the counter focuses primarily on wages while leaving protections vague, expect the union to signal publicly that little has changed.

Investors, operators, and industry observers will be watching closely. A first contract at Starbucks would set a precedent for what organized workers in food service can achieve after years of effort. A continued stalemate would reinforce the view that even well-resourced, highly visible unions face structural disadvantages in extracting first contracts from major QSR and fast-casual employers.

The math on Workers United's footprint is worth keeping in mind. Six percent of company-owned U.S. Starbucks locations is not a majority, but it is not negligible either. And the union's ability to time disruptive actions during high-traffic periods has demonstrated that even a minority of organized stores can generate significant operational and reputational pressure. The question heading into late March is whether that pressure, combined with a formal proposal and resumed in-person talks, is enough to finally produce an agreement.