Above, Cailyn Heath makes a poster. ARNIE ALPERT photo
By Arnie Alpert, Active with the Activists
Arnie Alpert spent decades as a community organizer/educator in NH movements for social justice and peace. Officially retired since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements.
On the day before the Starbucks Corporation’s 2025 annual meeting, baristas from three New Hampshire Starbucks stores held “Sip-Ins” to support their efforts to get a union contract to raise their wages and protect their benefits. Workers at more than 500 Starbucks stores across the country have unionized since 2021, but none of them have yet achieved a collective bargaining agreement.
Of the 500+ stores, three are in New Hampshire, in Rochester, Stratham, and Epping. A fourth, in Seabrook, is poised to join them pending the outcome of an election scheduled for April 3.
The stories of union supporters have a lot in common. They say they love their jobs, they love their co-workers, and they need higher pay and more secure benefits. Some of them also stress that their struggle is about more than one giant coffee chain.
“I want our store to be a better environment for everybody,” said Cailyn Heath, a shift supervisor at the Stratham Starbucks, whom I met standing outside the store in Epping Tuesday morning. “I want people to be working in good conditions,” by which she means better pay and sufficient staffing in the store.
To reach a contract covering all the unionized stores, their union, Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), has been at the negotiating table with the company for more than a year and has brought in a mediator. The National Labor Relations Board has reported more than 700 Unfair Labor Practices charges against the company. But so far, there’s no contract. And just this week, an NLRB judge ordered the company to rehire two workers in North Carolina who were illegally fired.
“I’m hoping that we can come to an agreement soon,” Heath said. “But I also want us to get what we deserve. So if it takes longer, then I’m willing to wait longer.”
Inside the Epping store, Heath took out a pile of art supplies, passed them out to other union baristas, and started making a poster. Hers would say, “No Contract, No Coffee,” a slogan they used when the Starbucks workers in Stratham and Epping went on strike for a day on Christmas Eve. 300 other stores also struck that day, according to SBWU.
Alex Moore spoke to me during a break in his shift at the Epping store. He had previously worked at Starbucks in Tilton and Stratham and has been in the Epping store since August, 2023. He wants better benefits, but he also wants the benefits the coffee chain offers now to be “locked down” with a union contract. For example, the company offers support for workers to go to college, and he’s starting online classes with Arizona State University next week. He wants assurance that tuition support will continue.
The goals of the Sip-In, Heath said, “are to make sure our customers know that we’re union stores,” as well as to educate each other about labor history and make stronger connections between Starbucks workers at different locations.
The union members drew support from members of the NH Faith and Labor Alliance, who showed up with signs by the back entrance of the Stratham store. When the store manager told them they weren’t allowed to be “soliciting” on store property, they moved to the front of the store, a spot which was far more visible to motorists and gave them an opportunity to interact with drive-through customers.
For Jack Duquette, a barista in Stratham, the union drive is about more than just their own inadequate wages, working conditions, and benefits. What they’re facing, he said is “a problem with the way that corporations, including Starbucks, and specifically Starbucks in this case, treats its employees.” Other baristas expressed hopes that success at Starbucks could spread better conditions throughout the food services sector.
Duquette said he’s hopeful about the contract talks, and that after a mediation session the company has “a good idea of where they need to bend.” And as for the stockholders meeting tomorrow, “I think they should know that we are the ones that run this company in a true sense, and when our CEO is getting paid $800,000 a day, it just does not make sense to continue to deny the people that make their money their own money,” he said. “$800,000 a day may be a bit of an exaggeration, but who’s counting? Actually, I am.”
Starbucks’ CEO is Brian Niccol, and according to information provided to company stockholders, his total compensation for 2024 was $97,813,843. If we assume he works very hard, 16 hours a day, and never takes a day off, his pay comes to $267,983 a day or $16,749 an hour. The company says the annual compensation for its typical employee, a part-time barista, was $14,674 last year, and reports in its statement to its stockholders, “The ratio of our CEO’s annual total compensation to our median employee’s annual total compensation for fiscal year 2024 is 6,666 to 1.”
“I love Starbucks,” said Stephanie Viekman, a multi-state Starbucks veteran who joined the union in Seabrook when she learned about the organizing drive in January. “I love my job,” she said, and added, “I want Starbucks to be a better place.”
She’ll have a chance to cast her vote for the union when the NLRB comes to Seabrook Crossing to supervise an election on April 3.