Starbucks

Baristas across the country are leading union drives at their workplaces. A combination of factors have led to this surge in activism among service workers who before now felt they had little voice.

It’s become a common sight: jubilant Starbucks workers celebrating after successful votes to unionize at dozens of U.S. stores. But when the celebrations die down, a daunting hurdle remains. To win the changes they seek, like better pay and more reliable schedules, unionized stores must sit down with Starbucks and negotiate a contract. It’s a painstaking process that can take years.

Starbucks says it will pay travel expenses for U.S. employees to access abortion or gender-confirmation procedures if those services aren't available within 100 miles of a worker’s home. Starbucks is among the most high-profile companies to adopt a travel benefit.

Once seen as among the most generous of employers, Starbucks is now grappling with disillusionment among its workers. Since December, 20 stores have unionized with more filing for elections every day.

Howard Schultz rejoins Starbucks as interim CEO as the company faces multiple challenges, including an unprecedented wave of unionization at stores across the country.

Baristas and other employees at a Seattle Starbucks have voted to unionize, the first such vote in the city where Starbucks originated and the latest in a nationwide push to organize the coffee shop chain.

From the time he bought Starbucks in 1987 to the time he stepped down as chairman in 2018, Howard Schultz successfully fought attempts to unionize Starbucks’ U.S. stores. But Schultz, who will step in as Starbucks’ interim chief executive in April, never confronted a unionization movement as big and fast-growing as the current one.

Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft Philanthropies, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, billionaires Steve and Connie Ballmer and others say they’ll spend more than $10 million to combat homelessness in Seattle. The money will help fund a team from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, designed to triage and alleviate homeless camping in downtown and the city’s International District.

Starbucks says its U.S. workers must be fully vaccinated by Feb. 9 or face a weekly COVID testing requirement.

Starbucks has announced long-awaited plans to phase out plastic straws. The company will replace them with a strawless lid that looks a bit like a child’s…