On Wednesday, Mount Pleasant Starbucks workers joined hundreds of other unionized Starbucks locations across the country in protesting working conditions.
Starbucks Workers United is encouraging the strikes. They tweeted early Wednesday morning, "Starbucks stores across the country are striking to demand an end to Starbucks' illegal union-busting campaign. While the company keeps a metaphorical 'empty chair' for us in the boardroom, we're demanding a real seat at the table!"
The Mount Pleasant Starbucks location on East Pickard Street has been unionized since September of 2022. However, Barista Evie Soto said that working conditions have become, "unlivable."
Soto said, "We are protesting Starbucks unfair labor practices. They have been union busting across pretty much all of our union stores. They are short staffing is across the board. They're overworking the few partners that they put in the store at one time. And they're cutting all of our hours. It's unlivable, and it's unacceptable. And we demand better."
Soto said she has been working at this Starbucks location for about a year, but she has been an employee at Starbucks for four years.
Soto said this is their second protest since November 17th, which is the Starbucks "red cup day." She said the problem is not that they are lazy, but that they, "want to work."
She said, "the understaffing is too extreme. It is unbearable. And it's unacceptable. There will be as few as two or three of us in the store at a time which is just never ever okay. They expect us to keep the store open with less than half the staff required to do so. And it cannot go on."
The Mount Pleasant location was closed all day Wednesday, and Soto said they plan on having more strikes if their demands are not met.
Soto said, "if Starbucks doesn't meet our demands, we will plan more strikes and more action in the future."
According to Starbucks Workers United, some of the demands include, "a seat at the table and a say in our workplace."
All the workers protesting at this location said overall they want what is best for customers. Soto said, "There have been so many times where our store was in such great disrepair that we really could not deliver to our customers what they were owed. And it reflects poorly on us and the company."
Starbucks corporation declined to comment on the strike.
